


There Is No One Else

by SeveralSmallHedgehogs



Series: The Last of Us/Critical Role Universe [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series), The Last of Us
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Animal Death, Blood and Gore, Bonding, Caleb has PTSD, Dead People, Fire, Fluff and Angst, Guns, Implications of Cannibalism, So many zombies, The Last of Us - Freeform, Zombies, it's The Last of Us, lots of fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-07-10 12:25:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 65,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeveralSmallHedgehogs/pseuds/SeveralSmallHedgehogs
Summary: Twenty years ago, a mutated fungus started turning humans into killing machines, and Nott figures this is just how things will be forever. Then she meets Caleb and discovers that he's immune to the fungus. If she can just get him to the Fireflies, they might be able to find a cure.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Cordyceps: a genus of ascomycetous fungi (family Hypocreaceae) parasitic in insect larvae and ultimately converting the whole body into a sclerotium. (Definition from Merriam-Webster)
> 
> In other words, a fungus that roots inside a host and turns it into food.
> 
> (Based on [this.](https://emmiefox.tumblr.com/post/174837740397/the-last-of-us-au-for-caleb-and-nott-from-the-new))
> 
> General warning: there is a lot of violence in this fic, about on the level of what's typical of Critical Role and The Last of Us. Probably even a little tamer. But there will be descriptions of dead people and zombies and stuff because, you know, zombie apocalypse, so be prepared.

When the outbreak reached his city, Caleb was eating dinner with his parents. He was telling them about what he’d learned in Chem that day, about how there was this chemical that let you set fire to things without burning them. His parents were smiling at him, a little worried that their son had set his hand on fire but happy he was so excited about school for once.

Then they heard shouts from outside, and a pair of fists on the door—pounding, pounding, pounding.

The smiles disappeared, and Caleb’s father pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “What in the world…?” he muttered as he headed for the door. Caleb looked at his mother, who was clutching her fork, her face tense.

“Mom?” he asked, and then they heard a horrible shriek of metal and a splintering sound, and his father gave a yell. There was a cry like something from a wild animal, and a sickening thud. “Mom?” Caleb said again, on his feet.

Caleb’s father appeared in the doorway, his chest heaving.  “Something is wrong,” he managed between breaths. “We—we need to get out of here.”

“This way!” Caleb’s mother grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the back door, with his father following on their heels. Caleb heard a crashing sound and looked over his shoulder. He saw one of their neighbors climbing out of the wreckage of their dinner table, and something was very wrong. His eyes were wild, and his mouth and chest were caked with something dark.

Then his mother yanked him through the back door and into the backyard. She opened the gate in the fence and pulled him to the car, where she fumbled with the keys. He heard more human but inhuman noises and looked up into the street. Their neighbor was stumbling towards them.

“Caleb!” His father caught his attention again. The car door was open and his parents were inside. He climbed into the back seat and yanked the door shut as his mother started the car and hit the gas. One of their other neighbors—an elderly lady who owned four cats—appeared in front of them, her face similarly smeared with red. She slammed into the hood and fell to the side, and Caleb’s mother peeled off down the street.

“Mom?” Caleb asked shakily. They passed a house that was completely engulfed in flames. Didn’t a kid in his math class live there? “Mom, Dad, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” his mother replied. Her eyes were wide and her knuckles were pale as she gripped the steering wheel. There were other people in cars, but most people were on foot, running. They passed more people who had blood on them, and some of them were limping and some called out, but others just ran straight at the car. Caleb twisted to look over his shoulder as they sped past a man who shouted for help, and as he watched, a woman ran out of an alley, tackled the man, and sank her teeth into his neck. Caleb covered his mouth with his hands.

“Don’t look,” Caleb’s father told him. “Caleb, look down. Look at the floor. We’re going to be okay, I—”

Something exploded into the side of their car and glass filled the air. When Caleb regained his senses, he was hanging upside-down from his seatbelt with his hands above his head, brushing the broken glass on the ceiling of the car. It took him a second to process that they’d collided with something. Their car had rolled over. His parents were frantically scrabbling at their seatbelts.

“Dad?” he managed.

“Get your seatbelt off,” his father told him. “We—we have to get out of here. Come on.” As he finished, he managed to unbuckle his belt, and he crumpled onto the ceiling of the car. Caleb unbuckled himself and fell onto the ceiling, but there was something blocking the passenger side window. He climbed into the front seat, and his father dragged him the rest of the way through the drivers’ side window. His arm hurt. He’d cut it on the glass. He felt woozy, but his mother was already pulling him down the street.

"We’re going to be okay,” she said. “We’re okay. We’re okay…"

Everyone around him was screaming. All of it seemed like it was blending together into one snarling, shrieking monster of lights and noise and fleeing crowds. They stumbled out of the town and past a waiting line of empty cars. Caleb wondered briefly where all the people were, and then his mother stopped so abruptly he ran into her. There was light on them, blinding light. Caleb shaded his eyes and squinted until he could make out the shape of a man in combat gear, holding a rifle on them.

“Help us,” Caleb’s father pleaded. “We don’t—we don’t know what’s going on and—"

“Quiet!” barked the man. Then he said into his radio, “I’ve got three outside of town. What should I do with them?” There was a pause. “But… sir, there’s a woman. And a kid.” Another pause. “Yes, sir,” he said, and then he raised is rifle.

Caleb’s father swore and turned to run, shoving Caleb and his mother away, but gunshots rang out and weight hit Caleb in the back, and he fell with his parents, down the hill into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here!](http://severalsmallhedgehogs.tumblr.com/)


	2. Summer: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you do when you're waiting to see if you're gonna get backhanded by a hurricane? You write fic, of course!  
> 

When Nott was young, she didn't realize that she'd been alive for the outbreak. It just seemed like the way things had always been. By the time she was twelve, though, she'd searched back in her memories and found that day. She remembered when tension had settled over the city and people had started packing up and leaving town. There had been a lot of empty houses by the time the foster family she'd been staying with just up and left without her, searching for a safer place to live. She'd grown up nearly alone, watching her city fall deeper and deeper into isolation as the military took over. She'd watched from the inside as the walls went up, and once she'd found a way outside, she rarely returned.

There were certain tunnels the military hadn’t found yet; she used them to get in, get supplies, and get out. She always stayed on the fringes, in the shadows where she was safe. She did have to contend with Infected from time to time, but they were far easier to deal with than people with guns.

But the past few days she’d been driven further into the city looking for food. Even though it was summer, the military was keeping a tight hold on their rations. Supplies must have been getting low, and people were getting desperate. People like Nott. But the food wasn’t what got her. No, what got her into trouble was a ring.

It wasn’t even real jewelry. It was a piece of cut glass, set in sterling silver. But there weren’t a lot of shiny things around here, not anymore. She’d loved shiny things ever since she could remember, and it had gotten her into trouble loads of times. Usually she could get out of it on her own, but this time she’d stolen it right from a soldier’s pocket. She’d seen him take it from some woman on the street, and she’d watched from a distance and made a note of where he put it. Then, when she saw her chance, she tried to steal it.

Usually she was a good pickpocket, but this time her luck failed her. It had landed her here, sitting back on her heels with her hands behind her head, waiting as the soldier who’d caught her talked with his partner over his radio.

Another soldier approached from behind her. “This one was in the tunnels,” he said, and somebody fell to their hands and knees in the mud at Nott’s side. “Hands behind your head,” the second soldier added, grabbing the collar of the man’s jacket and dragging him up right. The man gritted his teeth and obeyed.

Nott barely paid him any attention, and she tuned out the soldiers talking over their radios. Her mind whirled, spinning up plans and discarding them one by one. She wasn’t used to being caught and she didn’t know how to get out of something like this without backup. But after only a few moments, she realized that the man next to her was strangely silent.

She eyed him over. He looked older than he probably was, and he had sharp cheekbones, an arched nose, and red-brown hair pushed back from his face. His eyes were wide, his face was pale, and his expression was one of silent dread.

Abruptly she heard the mud squelch behind her as a soldier stepped up and told her, “Hold still.” Something cold and plastic pressed to the back of her neck: a device to check for the infection. It beeped once, and then retreated. Then soldier with the detector moved to press the device to the back of the other captive’s neck. The man squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth.

The detector started beeping rapidly, and the soldier startled. “What the—”

None of them had noticed the tiny black bead in the man’s hand, and before the soldier could finish his sentence, the man whipped around and threw it upward. The bead exploded in a loud _crack_ and a flash of light.

Nott’s ears were ringing, but she’d been looking at the ground when the explosive went off and she knew an opportunity when she saw it. She sprang up, tackled the soldier, and wrestled his gun away. Still pinning him to the ground, she twisted and shot the second soldier, who was standing over the other prisoner. Then Nott sat up and shot her own captive, and then there was silence, save for her own heavy breathing.

“Thank you,” the man told her quietly, sitting up. He pushed the dead soldier off of himself and got to his feet, apparently unperturbed despite having been briefly pinned to the ground by a corpse.

Nott went over to the soldier who’d caught her and dug through his pockets until the found the ring again. Smug, she stuffed it into her pocket. “What was all that about?” she asked, and as she stood up again, the detector on the ground caught her eye.

“Don’t—” The man began, but she was already picking it up and looking at the display.

Immediately she dropped the detector and leveled her stolen pistol at the man. “You’re _infected,_ ” she snapped.

“I am _not,_ ” he retorted. “I mean—I am, but I—I am not—” Nott was still pointing the gun at him, and he seemed to be having trouble concentrating on anything but the barrel. Finally, he gave up pushed his sleeve up to his elbow, revealing a mostly-healed bite mark on his arm. There were paler patches around it that Nott recognized from other infected folks. But the patches hadn’t spread, and they looked more like scars than living fungus. “This is three weeks old,” he told her. “I don’t think I’m turning anytime soon.”

Nott scowled. “Everyone turns within a couple of days,” she replied.

“Not me.” He pulled his sleeve down and looked up, meeting her eyes. He looked serious, and for a moment or two they just stood, staring at each other, as Nott turned this over in her mind. If he really was immune, or even just resistant, then… well, then this was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.

“I think I know somebody who’d really want to meet you,” she said.

He eyed her warily. “Why?”

“Because they can keep you safe from the military, and you’re exactly what they’ve been looking for.”

 

Nott had dealt with the Fireflies before. The organization had been created only months after the outbreak, and they'd successfully dragged a city or two out from under the military in the decades following. This city wasn't one of those. The Fireflies had tried to recruit her, but she'd never done well with people once they got to know her. And the Fireflies had a tendency to drop like, well, flies. Especially in this city. But that hadn't stopped her from trading with them for supplies or information. She could only imagine what they would give her in exchange for bringing this guy to them.

The man—Nott realized that she’d forgotten to ask his name— seemed used to making his way through the streets in the shadows. He seemed to know when to keep his eyes down and when to duck into an alleyway. Once or twice he even spotted a patrol before she could. Nott kept her hood up and her bandana over her face, hiding everything but her eyes. The man hadn’t commented on this.

But as they drew close to their destination, Nott started to grow uneasy. She hadn’t seen any lookouts around, but there should have been three or four by now. The Fireflies were a tight-knit resistance group that opposed the military; their safehouses were always well-guarded. So why wasn’t anybody stopping them when they were this close to one?

Nott was starting to peer around corners out of sheer anxiety when the man asked her, “How much farther are we going? This is not a good part of town.”

“We’re close,” Nott said, glancing around another corner and then turning to face him. “And keep your voice down. Something’s…” A shadow moved behind him, and Nott gasped. “Hold on! He’s with me!”

The man, by some lucky instinct, went still. If he’d done anything else, the woman standing behind him would likely have shot him. She was lean and muscular, gray-streaked hair pulled back in a ponytail of tight black curls. She wore long sleeves despite the warm weather, and her expression was dark.

“Who is this, Nott?” asked Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies. 

“He’s—” Shit, Nott still didn’t know his name. “He’s someone I met,” she said. To the man she added, “Show her your arm!”

“Do I have to?” he mumbled, barely moving his mouth. He hadn't moved his head.

Marlene reached over and pulled his sleeve up. He winced, but continued to hold still as she stared at the bite mark and the signs of infection. After roughly five seconds of silence, Marlene looked at Nott. “How long ago did he get this?” she asked.

“He says three weeks,” Nott replied.

“And he asked to come see me?”

“No,” the man answered.

Nott shifted uneasily. “I was my idea. I—I thought you might have some idea of how we might be able to… I don’t know. Figure something out. If he's immune, then... he's what you've been looking for, right? He could be a lead.”

Marlene hesitated for a moment, thinking hard. Finally she asked he man, “What’s your name?”

“Caleb,” he said. “Now could you please stop pointing that at my head?”

Marlene narrowed her eyes, but after a moment, she lowered the gun. “We can’t talk here,” she said. “Follow me.”

 

Nott knew the route into the safehouse, and she led the way. Caleb followed behind her, and Marlene brought up the rear. Nott had the feeling she was making sure Caleb didn’t try to make a run for it. Although Nott had noticed that the Firefly leader was limping—she didn’t have the courage to ask why—there was no doubt that Marlene could take Caleb down if she wanted to. He didn’t seem like he'd be all that great in a head-on fight.

At last, Nott reached a heavy metal door in the side of the one of the buildings. By putting all her weight against it and digging her heels into the ground, she managed to push it open.

The room was small and dim; the only light came from the windows in one wall, and the sun was setting. Marlene limped in behind Caleb and leaned against a table, holding her side. Nott noticed red soaking Marlene’s shirt, but bit her lip to keep from asking about it. She started to close the door, and movement out of the conrer of her eye caught her attention; a slim brown cat slipped through the door just before it shut.

"Hey," Nott said, putting out one foot to try and push it back outside, but the cat simply stepped over her foot and made a beeline across the room. It hopped up on the table next to Caleb. He smiled tiredly and scratched it between the ears.

"That your cat?" Marlene asked. There was just a trace of humor in her expression, even though she wasn't much one for levity these days.

"Yes," Caleb said. "He's a traveling companion. His name is Frumpkin."

“That's a good name." She sighed and lowered herself into a chair. Then she addressed Nott: “Here’s the deal. You just need to get him to the Capitol building. There’s a team of Fireflies that will be there to meet you. They’re here for a supply pickup, but—”

“Hold on,” Nott protested. “ _I’m_ taking him? I don’t think I can—”

"I don’t have anybody left in the city,” Marlene interrupted. “The military here has been weeding us out. I’d go myself, but…” She looked down at her wound and made a face. “I’d only slow you down. And we need to get him out of the city before the military finds you two. I’ve heard them talking,” she added when Nott opened her mouth again. “Those soldiers you killed put out a description when they caught you."

Nott swallowed hard. “Marlene, I—”

“We don’t have anybody who can do this,” Marlene interrupted quietly. “I know you’re not a Firefly, Nott, but I can arrange payment once you get back here. I may not have men, but I have supplies and a little money. I’ll give you whatever you want. Just get him there, explain the situation, hand him off, and come back. Our team will take him the rest of the way.”

Nott bit her lip and looked at Caleb. He only looked back, oddly quiet. Finally, she turned back to Marlene and, slowly, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

“Hold on,” Caleb cut in. “I’m not just going to run off into the woods with a child as a guide.”

Nott didn't correct him. People underestimated her a lot when they mistook her age, and until she knew Caleb better, it was probably safest to let him think she wasn't as old as she was. “Seems to me you don’t have much of a choice,” she pointed out instead. “They want you dead. You killed a soldier.”

“If we're being technical, you killed two soldiers.”

“The military won’t see it that way," Marlene replied, raising her eyebrows. “Seems to me you’d want to get out of town as soon as possible, before they find you. I doubt they’d offer you the safety the Fireflies do once you get to our research facility. At least this way, you'll have someone watching your back."

Caleb gave Nott a dubious once-over, and while he didn't speak, it was obvious what he was thinking.

Marlene crossed her arms. “Nott’s been running around this area since she was a kid. She knows how the military works, and she deals with Infected all the time. She’s your best shot at getting out of this town alive. And once you reach the capital building, you’ll have a team of seasoned veterans taking you the rest of the way. It seems like a pretty good deal to me. But I suppose, in the end, it’s up to you.” She shrugged.

Nott couldn’t quite read the look in her eyes. It was a hard look, disguised with something like apathy. She was pretending she didn’t care, but she did. She cared a lot. Nott eyed Caleb uneasily, hoping he took her offer. If he didn't... well, she had a feeling he'd be going to that research facility whether he agreed to or not. Marlene was not going to let him go.

Whether or not Caleb noticed the look in Marlene's eyes, it was difficult to tell. He studied her for a moment longer, rubbing his hand along Frumpkin's back. Finally, he sighed. “Okay, then,” he murmured, resigned. “How are we getting out?”

“That,” Marlene replied, “is up to Nott.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of a slow chapter after that prologue, I know. I promise it'll speed up once they get out of the city.
> 
> I had to edit Marlene's personality a little for this fic, but hopefully nothing will be too out of character. It took some real work to get a reason for Caleb to risk his life out there. It's kinda hard to write a Nott who doesn't care about Caleb, and vice versa, since that's such a huge part of their characters in canon. Caleb kinda becomes a scared guy who just kinda hides from everything, and Nott... likes... stealing things? It's weird to write characters in a state I've never seen them in.
> 
> No beta, feel free to point out typos.  
> (Please point out typos, I will not notice them on my own)


	3. Summer, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So these three chapters are really close just to get it rolling, and I'll do my best to keep a weekly update schedule here.

There was no point in trying to get out during the day; they’d be spotted before they could get a hundred feet from the wall. So, as twilight settled over the city, they made their way across the city to one of Nott’s safehouses and settled in to wait for night to settle. As Nott went about getting together a couple of packs of supplies, Caleb sat down in the windowseat and Frumpkin hopped up into his lap. Caleb pulled something small and rectangular out of his jacket, and it took Nott a second to realize what it was.

“How did you get ahold of a book?” she asked, straightening up.

He flipped a page but didn’t look up. “It’s mine," he told her, taking a pencil from a different pocket and starting to write in the pages.

“Okay, but how’d you get it? I thought the military keeps close track of books.

“They do,” he replied. “But this one was blank. They don’t care so much about journals. They just want to control the information flow.”

“So that’s a journal?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?”

Nott made a face at him and flopped down on the couch. With nothing better to do until nightfall, she closed her eyes and settled into a doze. She was vaguely aware of what was happening in the room; she heard scribbling, and the occasional turn of a page, but no other movement. Finally, after a while, she opened her eyes again. It was dark. The scribbling had stopped at some point.

Yawning, Nott sat up and looked around the darkened room. Caleb was still sitting in the window with his cat asleep in his lap. His journal had disappeared, probably back into his jacket, and he was looking down at the lights of the city below. Rain drummed against the glass beside him.

He didn’t turn to face her, or give any other acknowledgement that he knew she was awake, for a moment or two. Then, without prompting, he murmured, “I always forget how dark it is out there.”

Nott went to the window and followed his gaze. He wasn’t watching the city, as she’d first thought; instead, his attention was on the wilderness beyond the wall. The searchlights lanced over the occasional truck or other large piece of garbage, but it was pretty much just a wasteland.

Nott turned away from the window. “We should head out,” she said, grabbing the smaller backpack off of the floor. “But before we go, I have a question. What was that thing you threw at that soldier?”

“It’s sort of like a cherry bomb,” he replied. He nudged Frumpkin awake and gave the cat a chance to jump to the ground before he got up.

“How’d you make it explode?”

“I lit the fuse?” he replied, giving her a quizzical look.

“Have you got any more?”

“A few.” He put a hand over his pocket. “Plus a little alcohol and a lighter.” His voice took an odd tone when he added, “I’m good at fire.”

Nott nodded uneasily. “Sure,” she said. “But… with luck, we won’t need any.”

“With luck,” Caleb echoed, picking up the other backpack. “If we’re ready to go, then let’s get this over with.”

Nott led Caleb down to an underground tunnel that had probably been dug out by smugglers before she was born. Neither of them spoke much; there was only the occasional “Watch it,” or “Careful.”

The tunnel ended in a ladder that Nott knew led outside the wall. “Stay here,” she said. “I’m going to make sure the coast is clear.” She climbed up and lifted the plywood covering the entrance just high enough that she could see out. The tunnel was hidden in a ditch worn out over time by the wain. There were lights in the distance—a patrol—but nothing nearby.

“We can go,” she told Caleb, and then shoved the plywood aside so she could climb out. Caleb followed, and Nott managed to drag the cover back over the opening in the ground.

The rain was worse in the dark. The water in the ditch had risen due to cover their feet, and mud clung to their shoes. After a couple of minutes, Caleb picked Frumpkin up off the ground and cradled him against his chest, apparently disregarding the mud he was getting on his shirt in his attempt to shield the cat from the rain. Frumpkin, meanwhile, didn't seem all that upset about the rain.

Within minutes, the rain was soaking through Nott’s hoodie. She doubted Caleb’s little explosives would be much use in a downpour like this; their only option was not to be seen.

“Stay close,” she told him quietly. He nodded.

Nott had taken this route before. She was used to scampering around, ducking behind things at a moment’s notice. But Caleb wasn’t; although he seemed like he was trying to be quiet as he slogged through the water behind her, he wasn’t doing a very good job.

Just as they were getting close to a bridge, Nott heard footsteps approaching and spotted flashlight beams in the raindrops overhead. “Hide,” she hissed, ducking behind a shipping crate. Caleb followed her and crouched down despite the mud. Nott remained still, listening as the footsteps drew closer and turned to quiet _thumps_ when the patrol reached the bridge. The beam of a flashlight passed over the crate, but it didn’t reach them.

Frustratingly, once the footsteps reached the other side of the bridge, the noise of the rain swallowed them up. Nott took a chance and peered out from behind the crate. The bridge was empty again. She stepped out from behind the crate, half bent over, and ran to an overhang with Caleb right behind her. Then she waited for a moment, listening for more footfalls, but she didn’t hear any. It sounded like the patrol had moved on. Good.

“Let’s—” As Nott started to step out, Frumpkin meowed and Caleb wordlessly put his arm out to stop her. He was looking straight up. Following his gaze, Nott spotted the soldier standing above them just as he turned to shine his flashlight down into the ditch, right in front of them. Nott and Caleb pressed back against the wall, holding their breath. The light slid over the mud, and over to the side of the shipping crate where they’d been hiding only moments before.

They waited tensely as the beam did one last sweep over the ditch… and then retreated. The soldier disappeared from the edge, his boots squelching in the mud as he disappeared back to his patrol path.

When nothing else happened for another moment or two, Nott exhaled. “Thanks,” she told Caleb.

Caleb didn't respond, thought she was sure he'd heard her. He was still looking up at where the solder had been standing. “Can we get out of here now?” he asked.

After another couple of uncomfortably close calls, they reached a pipe set into the dirt that eventually dropped them onto a bank in what had used to be a sewer. Nott glanced over her shoulder to see how Caleb was doing and found him looking pretty unaffected. His jacket stuck to his shoulders, and his hair was plastered back from his face. Nott imagined she wasn’t in much better shape. And now that they were going through a sewer, she realized, she should probably take her mask off. Nobody to hide from out here.

“Let’s take a rest for a second,” she told him, pulling her bandana off and twisting it to squeeze some water out. Caleb dropped Frumpkin, sat down, and sighed, shrugging out of his backpack and rolling his shoulders. Once he’d settled, he was silent for a moment. Then, abruptly, he looked over at her. “How are you doing?”

She couldn’t help cracking a smile. “ _I’m_ fine. Are _you_ all right?”

He looked up at the grate and exhaled heavily, his eyes flicking left to right as he tried to think of a response. “I… have been in worse places,” he replied at last. Before Nott could push him for more details, she noticed light lancing by overhead.

“Shh,” she told him. “There’s another patrol.”

“There’s an overhang there.” He pointed across the way. Nott grimaced, but followed him into the chilly water. At the overhang, it came up to her chest. She had no doubt that everything in her backpack was getting even more soaked than it had been already. They waited there in silence for the patrol to pass, and once it had, they started off again.

As the night crawled on, they reached the surface again and found that the rain had turned into a full-on thunderstorm. “We should reach the capital building by dawn,” Nott told Caleb under the steady rain. He only nodded, looking around at the skyscrapers towering above them. Nott looked up, too. She didn’t come this far out all that often, and she always forgot how huge these buildings were. She wondered why anyone would build something that made them feel so small.

Then, through a peal of thunder, she heard a noise that made her blood run cold. It was like an animal’s shriek, but horribly dry. Like somebody trying to scream after they’d lost their voice.

Caleb and Frumpkin seemed to recognize it, too. Frumpkin's tail bushed out, and Caleb locked eyes with Nott. “We should keep going,” he said.

Nott had often speculated that climbing through the ruins might have been fun if it wasn’t so terrifying. Clambering over rubble, negotiating the easiest path… there was something satisfying about finding her way around an obstacle.

They climbed into a building to get over a particularly rough patch. Caleb pulled out his flashlight and looked around. “I don’t like this place,” he told her, stepping to the side to avoid some water dripping from the ceiling. Then he looked down, and halted. “Oh.”

His flashlight had found the remains of a man lying with his back against a wall. Judging by the blood covering his coat and chunks of missing flesh, he’d been mauled by Infected. The worst part, though, was the symbol displayed on his sleeve: a stylized image of an insect with outstretched wings and a beam of light emanating from its tail end.

“This guy was a Firefly,” Nott said aloud.

There was a pause, and she and Caleb glanced at each other. She was expecting him to voice her own question— _Is there going to be anyone left to meet us at the dropoff?—_ but he only looked away and moved the light off of the corpse. “Let’s keep moving.”

“Hang on. Let me see if there’s anything we can use…” Nott crouched down and started going through the dead man’s pockets. She found a flask of water that was still good, some rations, a soaked and useless pack of matches, and a bottle with a rag stuffed into the top. She recognized the smell, but why would someone plug a bottle of alcohol like that?

Caleb must have noticed the confusion on her face. “It’s called a Molotov cocktail,” he explained. “You light the rag on fire and throw it.”

“Oh.” Nott got to her feet and held it out to him. “You keep it, then. You said you’re good with fire.”

He hesitated, but after a second, he resignedly took the bottle and tucked it into the pocket of his backpack. Once Nott had done one last search of the body and found nothing, they moved on.

It seemed at first that they’d avoided the Infected by going up into the building, but as they made their way upward again, they started to hear that noise again. It echoed off the walls, raising the hairs on the back of Nott’s neck. “Stay close,” she told Caleb, and turned off her flashlight. Caleb followed suit.

And when she rounded the next corner, she spotted the first of the Infected. Immediately she took two quick steps backward, reaching behind herself to grab the sleeve of Caleb’s coat in silent panic. He stepped back, too, grabbing her shoulder and tugging her with him. She glanced back and saw that he’d found an overturned table. Together they ducked behind it and waited.

Luckily, they’d gotten out of the way before the Infected spotted them. But as it passed, Nott began to hear more snarls and realized that there wasn’t just one Infected in this building. Carefully she peered around the edge of the table. Through the remains of a smashed wall, she could see several more Infected in the room beyond, and past them, there was a closed gate with a ledge and a large hole above it. There was even a ladder hidden up on the ledge. Holding her breath, Nott counted heads. There were six, maybe seven of them, all wandering around right in her and Caleb’s path.

She’d never had to deal with a group that large before. She looked at Caleb and found him poking his head over the table, watching the distant, lurching forms of the Infected. “Any ideas?” she whispered.

He glanced at her and dropped down to scan the floor around them, and after a moment, he picked up a broken bottle by its neck and looked back up at Nott. “How is your aim?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here!](http://severalsmallhedgehogs.tumblr.com/)


	4. Summer, Part 3

Caleb’s plan wasn’t a very good one, but it was better than anything Nott had. Which was nothing. But the longer she eyed the ladder propped up on the ledge above the gate on the other side of the room, the more she doubted they’d get there. No way would the sound of a bottle breaking get all of the Infected away from the gate for long enough for her and Caleb to get to it. More than likely, they’d have to improvise.

“All right,” Caleb muttered. "Frumpkin made it up there. Now it's our turn." He looked at Nott. "Ready?”

“Hold on.” Nott set the broken bottle down and pulled her flask out of her pack. Quickly she unscrewed the top, took a large gulp, and then tucked the flask away and picked up the bottle again. “Okay,” she said through the dull burn of alcohol in her throat.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Caleb told her.

“Okay,” Nott said again, quieter. Then she poked her head above the table, took a deep breath, and threw the bottle as hard as she could in the direction opposite where she and Caleb needed to go. The bottle crashed against the far wall, and instantly all of the Infected sprinted towards it.

With the Infected facing away from their escape route, Nott and Caleb moved out of their hiding place and made their way through the room in a half-crouch. Nott found herself holding her breath, keeping an eye on the Infected as they searched for the source of the noise that had drawn them over there.

But as she drew closer to the ledge—and the broken wall above it—movement caught her attention; there was one Infected still standing in front of the gate, just a few feet from the ladder. “Shit,” she whispered, stopping behind a counter. “What now?”

“Give me a second,” Caleb said. He swung his backpack off his back and got out the Molotov cocktail and his lighter. Then he muttered something in another language, flicked his lighter on, and held it to the rag. For a tense second, nothing happened. The tiny flame flickered over the rag. Then, abruptly, the fabric caught fire.

Caleb jumped a little, and then half rose out of his crouch to hurl the bottle at the Infected near the door. The bottle hit the creature and shattered, splattering the alcohol all over it. Within seconds the Infected and the area around it were in flames. The creature gave a horrible, guttural scream, flailing about at its untouchable enemy, and after a moment, it collapsed. Nott glanced over at the other Infected; they didn’t seem to be paying any attention. They were still searching for the bottle.

“Now’s our chance,” she whispered to Caleb.

She ducked out and had taken a couple of steps before she realized Caleb was still crouching behind the counter, his eyes locked on the burning and writhing Infected near the ladder. Nott returned to him and dropped to one knee. “Caleb?” she hissed. He didn’t reply. “Caleb!” She grabbed his shoulder.

He jolted and turned his head towards her, but it took a moment for his eyes to focus on her face. Once she was sure she had his attention, Nott repeated, “Let’s _go._ ”

Caleb blinked slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I—yeah.” This time he followed Nott to the ledge, and he didn’t look down at the creature as they passed it. Once they reached the wall under the ledge, he turned his back to the wall and boosted Nott up until she could grab the ladder.

But when she pulled it down, her hand slipped and it clattered to the floor—still thankfully upright. But with the noise all of the remaining Infected whirled around to face them. All at once, they shrieked and rushed towards them.

Caleb swore again, and Nott shoved him towards the ladder. “ _Go!_ ”

As Caleb climbed, Nott pulled out the pistol she’d stolen from the soldier and shot the closest runner. It stumbled backwards with a furious gurgle, but another one ran forward to take its place. When she shot that one, there were two more running at her.

“Nott!” Caleb shouted. “Come on!”

There was no way she could climb the latter with these things rushing her, but she glanced up and saw him reaching down. But that didn't make a  _difference,_ he couldn't possibly get her clear in time!

Just then a brown blur sailed past Nott, hissing and spitting, and Frumpkin hit the lead Infected hard enough to knock the thing over. Nott took her opportunity and grabbed Caleb's hands, and on an impulse, she hooked one foot around the ladder and swung it towards the Infected. The ladder crashed into them, and she heard Caleb grunt as he struggled to pull her up. Now was probably not the best time for her to be figuring out that Caleb wasn’t all that strong, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She felt something hit her backpack and fear shot through her, but it was just Frumpkin, digging his claws into her backpack in order to keep his grip.

Kicking her feet up, Nott found a toehold on the gate and put as much of her weight into it as she could. Caleb had grabbed her elbow with his other hand and was dragging her upwards. The jagged concrete was probably leaving some nasty scrapes on her stomach, but in a moment or two her feet were clear of the Infected, and she managed to crawl up onto the slab.

For a moment they just sat there, breathing heavily. The Infected were still down there, snarling and swiping the air. But they were far out of reach.

Caleb exhaled heavily and fell onto his back, where he remained, his chest heaving. Frumpkin rubbed his face against Caleb's, and Caleb exhaled and lifted one hand to pat the cat's side. "Thank you, friend," he managed.

“We need to keep moving,” Nott told him, getting up and shouldering her pack. "The noise is going to draw more of them." The whole front of her torso burned, and she was pretty sure she had some scrapes on her legs, too. Oh, well. She’d had worse.

“Yeah,” Caleb huffed, then he pushed himself up onto one elbow and stumbled to his feet. “That was… too close. Were you bitten?”

“No,” she replied. “I’m pretty good at this.”

Caleb nodded-- maybe in acknowledgement, maybe in agreement. "Good," he said, picking up Frumpkin and letting the cat curl around his shoulders. "Then let's get going."

 

They climbed higher after that, reasoning that the Infected wouldn’t have gotten onto the roofs. Or if they had, they’d be easier to spot.

As Nott and Caleb emerged onto the top of one of the lower buildings, Nott realized that the rain had stopped, and the gray early-dawn sky had already given way to brilliant pinks and oranges. For a moment she just stopped and stared, taking in the view of the light silhouetting the buildings and bouncing off of what few windows were still intact.

“What is it?” Caleb asked.

 “I’ve never been this far out before,” she told him.

He gave a dry chuckle. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy it on the way back. That’s the Capital building, I think.” He pointed to a domed structure with a point on the top. “We should be there before the sun rises completely.”

“Good,” Nott said. “I’m ready to be done with all these Infected.”

As they made their way across the rooftops, Nott kept having to pause and wait for Caleb to catch up. He wasn’t all that fast, and the height seemed to make him nervous.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I usually stay on the ground,” he replied, dubiously eyeing another plank they’d need to cross to get to the next building.

“You’ll be alright. Don’t you trust me?”

Either he didn’t hear her, or he chose not to answer. “We’re close to the capital building,” he said. “We should probably get down to the street anyway.”

After a few minutes of searching, Nott found a fire escape that took them all the way to the ground. She trotted down ahead of Caleb, but when she reached the bottom, she spotted a body slumped against the wall. He was wearing a light-colored coat like the Firefly they’d found earlier. But just because he was wearing a coat, it didn’t mean he was a Firefly. And Nott decided not to check and see whether he was wearing an armband. They would have brought a pretty big group for a supply drop, anyway. 

They kept a sharp lookout and kept their footsteps quiet, leery of attracting more of the Infected. But they didn’t hear any, and they didn’t see any, and soon enough they reached the spot in front of the capital building where the street had collapsed and water had filled it in, creating a miniature swamp.

When she saw the water, Nott balked. “Maybe we can find a way in over the fence,” she told Caleb.

“It looks shallow over here,” he replied. “Can’t you swim?”

“I don’t like water, so I never learned.” She sidled closer and eyed the greenish water. “There has to be another way around.”

Caleb gave her a puzzled look. “We just escaped a group of man-eating fungus creatures, and you’re afraid of a few fish?”

“It’s not about the fish,” she told him, but she didn’t elaborate.

“Well, you can see the bottom over here. Come on, aren’t you supposed to bring me all the way to the capital building? You’ll probably need something to prove to Marlene that you finished the job before you can get paid.”

She glared at him, but he was already wading in. She had no choice but to follow. And sure enough, the water never rose past her waist. She followed Caleb past a few broken-down cars and a fallen tree, and up onto the steps leading to the door.

As they climbed the stairs, neither of them spoke. Nott wanted to say something, but she wasn’t sure what. And no matter how much she’d grown to kind of like Caleb, she was handing him off now, so there was no point in saying anything. She resigned herself to silence as they climbed the last few steps and arrived at the huge wooden doors.

“All right,” she said. “Help me with these.”

“Let’s hope they’re not locked,” Caleb muttered.

Together, they braced their hands against one door and pushed. It creaked, cracked, and finally skidded open a little. Nott and Caleb glanced at each other; Nott’s expression was one of mild delight, and Caleb’s of weary relief.

With both of them putting their weight into it, they managed to shove the door open far enough to fit through. Nott went first, and immediately she stopped cold. Caleb stepped in behind her. When he spotted what she had, he swore quietly.

In the middle of the room, lying alone in a pool of his own blood, was a man wearing the symbol of the Fireflies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we finally find the plot.


	5. Summer, Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with Even More Fire
> 
> (dead body warning?)

“No,” Nott said. “No, no, no…” She ran to the fallen Firefly and dropped to her knees, looking him over for any sign of life. His eyes were open, staring blankly across the room.

Caleb pushed against the door, trying to close it without much success. Frumpkin hopped down and tried to help. “Nott,” grunted Caleb, “A little help here?”

She didn’t hear him; she was searching the Firefly’s body. “Uh, maybe they had another drop point? Or something about where they were going?”

Caleb sighed and glanced back out the door. “Can we move this somewhere less open?”

She turned to stare at him, but his expression was his usual one of tired resignation. “Aren’t you at all upset about this?”

“I figured it might be the case,” he replied tiredly, peering through one of the windows.

For a moment, Nott was struck speechless. He looked back at her, She got to her feet and demanded, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugged. “I figured the farther out I got, the better. Might as well have some help as far as you would take me.”

“Wait.” She frowned. “You aren’t going back to the city?”

The beginning of Caleb’s reply was drowned out by an awful screech from outside. Looking through the front door, Caleb spotted an Infected climbing the steps. Then he noticed the second one behind it. And the third one lurching out of an alley. And all the rest. Too many to count at a glance.

“Nott?” he said, scooping up Frumpkin and trotting back from the door as the groans of the Infected drifted up the stairs and through the open door. “We have to go!”

“This way!” Nott sprinted to the stairs, leading him up onto the second floor. “Maybe—there’s got to be another way out of here. We just need to get up to the second floor, and—and we might be able to get to the roof—”

As they reached the top of the stairs, Caleb glanced down from the railing that looked down into the entry hall. A shadow had appeared in the doorway, and as he watched, the first Infected lurched into the room. Another one appeared behind it. The door was acting as a bottleneck; with luck, it would take them a while to track him and Nott up to the second floor.

"Caleb!” Nott hissed from down the hall. “Over here! There’s a stairwell, we should be able to get down into the basement! It should lead out to a—a parking garage, or something!”

“What if it doesn’t?” he replied, joining her and eying the sign for the stairwell.

“Then we’ll figure something out, like you did with those zombies earlier! Let’s _go!_ ” She pushed open the door as quietly as she could, and stepped through to hold it for him. Caleb glanced back at the railing. The shrieks and groans of the Infected echoed through the entryway, out of sight.

With no other choice, he headed down the stairwell with Nott. But as they reached the landing for the first floor, he spotted a haze down below, and he stopped. “Nott,” he said, “I hope you have a gas mask.”

“Why?” she peered around him and stopped. “Oh, no. Spores.” She looked up at him. “I—I only have one mask, maybe we can find a way around?”

“No,” he said. “You only need the one. Frumpkin and I will be fine. Put it on and let’s go.”

“Oh, right.” Nott pulled her bandanna down to hang around her neck, and pulled her gas mask off her backpack. “You’re immune to spores, too?” She asked as she fitted the mask onto her face.

“I found out by accident.”

She looked up at him. “Before or after you were bitten?”

Caleb didn’t seem to hear her; he was peering down into the stairwell. “Your mask is all the way on?” he asked.

“Yeah. So did you—”

“Then let’s get going.” He started down the stairs again. Together they headed the rest of the way down the stairs, listening intently for any movement above them. But the Infected never found their way to the doors, and they reached the basement without issue. There, Nott found a sign that led them through a half-collapsed tunnel and out to a parking garage.

Just as Caleb was opening the door, though, something across the garage shrieked. The lurching heads of several Infected were visible over the tops of the cars, and Nott and Caleb ducked behind a car. As they sat and listened for how many they were dealing with, they realized that they were completely surrounded by Infected.

Nott took off her gas mask and checked her ammo. “I don’t have a lot of bullets left,” she told Caleb. “And I don’t think a bottle’s going to distract all of them this time. Do you have anything?”

“Some cherry bombs,” he said. “A knife. My lighter. Some matches. But no, nothing else. Do you have any alcohol?”

“It’s in a metal flask,” she replied.

“Do you see anything flammable?”

“No?”

He looked around for an idea, any idea, his eyes skimming over the broken-down cars until he suddenly stopped and actually thought for a second. Cars. A lot of people had abandoned their cars with gas still in them...

"I have a really stupid plan,” he told Nott.

“What is it?”

“I'd rather not tell you, or I'm likely to lose my nerve. Just stay here, and hold on to Frumpkin..." He handed her the cat. "And when I tell you to, run that way.” He pointed to where the parking lot opened to the outside.

“But what are you going to do?”

“When I say run,” he told her, “Run. Got it?”

She studied him for a second, wanting to press him for details, but his expression was so tense she just nodded. "I'll... I'll take care of Frumpkin, then."

“Alright.” Caleb moved out from behind the car and ducked behind another one. Carefully he pulled the door open and popped the fuel tank open, glancing through the drivers’ side window. The dark shapes on the other side didn’t react, so he crept over to twist the fuel cap off. Gasoline fumes wafted out, making his eyes water, but as best he could tell, there wasn't too much gas left inside. Good.

Then he took his matches out of his backpack and took a deep breath. His hands were shaking. He concentrated for a moment, willing them to stop, but they didn’t. He let out the breath.

"Here goes nothing,” he muttered. Then he struck the match, dropped it into the fuel tank, and quickly grabbed the cap and started screwing it back on. He'd forgotten one detail, though: when the cap was secure, it gave a  _click_ that echoed through the parking garage.

Caleb’s heart nearly stopped. On the other side of the car, he heard a snarl. When he looked up, he saw an Infected looking through the car, straight at him.

Instantly he leaped up and scrambled over the hood of the car behind him. “Nott! Run!” He shouted, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her dash for the opening to the outside. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw all of the Infected in sight sprinting towards him.

His heart climbed into his throat and he made a break for the window he’d seen Nott heading towards. He was too aware of the Infected right behind him, growling and screaming and getting closer.

And then he saw a shape out of the corner of his eye and looked over just as a runner tackled him to the ground. His head hit the concrete and he saw stars for a second, but his instincts had taken over and he already had one hand on the creature’s neck and the other over its forehead, holding it back as it snapped at his face. Its teeth were yellow and stained with brown and it smelled so intensely of rotting flesh that Caleb’s nose burned. And it was heavy, and the adrenaline in his veins was working against him. His arms were trembling with the effort of keeping it away from his face. He could see the other Infected almost on him, and he had the sickening realization that no immunity was going to keep him from getting torn to shreds.

Then he heard a gunshot, and the Infected on top of him lurched to the side, suddenly limp. He kicked it upwards at the nearest one standing, and nearby, the car whose fuel tank he'd set on fire gave a warning creak. It gave him just enough time to shout, “Get down!” and bring his arms up to cover his head.

The gas tank finally exploded with a deafening noise like a lightning strike. Searing heat washed over him. He could hear the Infected screaming again, flailing around at nothing, and he leaped up and ran towards where the gunshot had come from without looking back.

He vaulted over the concrete half-wall and landed next to a wide-eyed and ashen-faced Nott. “Come on!” he told her, grabbing her arm and dragging her to her feet. “Half the Infected in the city will have heard that!”

Without even trying to respond, she ran with him into the blissfully empty streets.

 

A few blocks from the capital building, Nott realized that Caleb was wheezing. She finally slowed down and risked a look backwards. “I think… I think we’re safe,” she huffed. Her legs were burning.

Caleb only nodded, and he trotted to a stop and leaned against a wall. A moment later his knees buckled and he sank to the ground, doubling over and clutching his middle.

Frumpkin yowled and clawed his way out of Nott's arms to run over to Caleb. Nott stepped towards him worriedly. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was taking even, deliberate breaths. Frumpkin cuddled up to him, rubbing his face against Caleb's. After a second, Caleb opened his eyes again and blew out through his mouth. “I’m okay,” he said, raising one hand to scratch his cat under the chin. “I’m all right. Thank you, little friend.” Bracing himself against the wall, he got to his feet again. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

 Seeing that he was all right, Nott relaxed and leaned back against the wall. “Well,” she said. “Now what?”

“Now… I suppose I keep going.” Caleb looked off into the distance, to the West. Then he asked Nott, “I’m assuming you can get back into the city on your own all right?”

She looked down. “Well,” she said, “I was thinking maybe I could come with you?”

Caleb was caught off-guard; for a second, he couldn’t think of a response. “Why?” he asked finally.

“Well…” She looked up and crossed her arms. “You need someone to look after you. I figure that someone is me.”

He snorted. “If I remember correctly, _I_ was the one who came up with the plans.”

“Yeah, but without me, you’d be zombie food right now.” She tilted her chin up confidently. “I’ll take you the rest of the way to wherever you’re going, all right?” She paused. “Where are you going, exactly?”

He sighed. “I have a friend out West,” he said. “I thought I’d go see her. She runs with the Fireflies, or she used to. She might have some idea of where I could go. I’m sure Marlene got word out about my situation.”

“How far West is your friend?”

He grimaced. “Wyoming.” Nott only stared at him blankly, so he clarified. “It’s far. Very far.”

“So we’re going to need a car,” Nott noted, looking back the way they’d come.

Caleb grimaced. “I don’t think any of those will work anymore. And even if they did, I’m not going back into that garage.”

They stood in silence for a moment while Nott thought hard. “I know someone nearby who might be able to get us a car,” she said slowly. “They live in a town that way.” She pointed to the West. “It shouldn’t be too much trouble as long as we load up on bullets on the way there. We can get to it on foot before the end of the day, probably.”

Caleb looked in the direction she was pointing. It didn’t look much worse or better than any other direction. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go pay them a visit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a paper to write but I got distracted looking up how a car can explode. However, I Am Not Here For Facts


	6. Summer, Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments and kudos, guys. I started writing this because I wanted to, but it's great to know other people want me to finish it, too

The sun was setting by the time Nott pointed to a water tower just off the highway that read, _LINCOLN._ “This is where they live,” she said.

“All right.” Caleb peered over the guardrail. “It will be faster to go through here,” he said, climbing over. “Let’s hope these friends of yours are glad to see you.”

They descended the slope into a small, beautiful patch of woods. The trees had grown tall with no interference from humans, and a creek flowed from somewhere up the hill. As Caleb reached the bottom of the slope, a white heron took off from the creek. Nott trotted down the last few steps and hopped onto solid ground. The heron caught her eye, and she jumped and whipped out her pistol.

"It's just a bird," Caleb told her.

"Right." Nott sheepishly stuck the pistol in her hoodie pocket.

Together they made their way towards the town through the little patch of woods. But at the top of the bluff beneath the water tower, they encountered a fence. Caleb swore quietly and pulled at the gate, but it didn’t budge. It was locked from the other side.

“Maybe I can climb over the fence,” Nott mused. Then she looked up and spotted the coils of barbed wire at the top. “Or not.”

After a few minutes of searching, they figured out a way they could climb up on top of the guard building to get over the fence. From the roof, though, Caleb spotted a column of smoke rising into the reddened sky. “Is that where they live?” he asked.

Nott hesitated. “Yeah,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain.

Caleb looked at her. “You’ve never been here before, have you?”

“Well, Jester told me to come here if I ever needed help,” Nott said. “She said she and Fjord live in a place in this direction, and it’s called Lincoln. This has got to be it, right? That has to be them.” Without waiting for a response, she hopped down and headed for the town proper.

Although, calling it a town _proper_ was a stretch. As they reached the main drag, they saw how run-down the place really was. What shop windows hadn’t been broken were too filthy to see through. Abandoned cars were strewn everywhere—some still in parking spaces, and others sitting on the road as if their occupants had just gotten out and left them in favor of traveling on foot. Patches of grass had grown through the cracked asphalt, in some places reaching as high as Caleb’s waist. On the main street, they found a trailer parked in the road with a rusted sign informing them of a mandatory evacuation notice.

Nott huffed and crossed her arms. “Evacuate to _where?_ ”

“The quarantine zone, most likely,” Caleb replied, continuing down the road. Nott trotted to catch up as he explained, “The infection didn’t hit everywhere at once; some people had time to get away before it reached them.”

“Did you?” Nott asked. “You were alive when the outbreak happened, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Caleb replied, glancing at a burned-out diner as they passed it.

“How old were you?”

He didn’t reply right away. “I don’t know.”

“Were you older than me, or younger?”

He eyed her. “How old are you?”

“I don’t know, but I’m, like, fully grown. I’m just really short.”

Caleb gave a thin smile.

As they made their way into an alley to cut through to another street, Nott caught a glint of something up ahead and trotted up to stop Caleb. Before he could ask why and before she could explain, there was a snarling noise, and an Infected with its eyes covered in fungus—a Clicker, one of the Infected that "saw" via sound—stumbled around the corner. Caleb inhaled sharply, reaching for his knife, but Nott pulled him backwards just as the Clicker hit the tripwire she’d spotted.

The explosion was bright enough to blind them and loud enough to leave their ears ringing. But when Nott blinked her vision clear, she saw the Clicker in a crumpled, blackened heap against the wall.

Caleb put a hand to his ear and winced, and then he realized that Frumpkin had leaped off his shoulders and was nowhere to be seen. More than likely, the blast had scared him off. Hopefully he'd be back soon. "What  _was_ that?" Caleb asked.

“One of Fjord’s traps, probably,” Nott said. “Or Jester’s. I’m not sure who makes them. It looks like it was on a tripwire—if we run into any more, they shouldn’t trigger as long as you keep your head down.”

“How exactly do you know these people?” Caleb asked, eying the remains of the trap as they moved past it and across the street.

“They helped me a few times,” Nott replied, heading for an entrance to a warehouse that would take them closer to the column of smoke. “They’re good at smuggling things. Jester’s really nice, and Fjord’s good at convincing people to do things. Together, they can talk their way past… well, almost anyone.”

“And why would they give us a car?”

Nott shrugged and paused in front of the door to a warehouse. “Jester’s really nice,” she repeated. “And I don’t know anywhere else we might be able to get one.”

Caleb grimaced. “All right,” he said. “Let’s just try to find him soon. The fact that we haven’t seen any people yet makes me think there are many more Infected around than we’ve seen so far.”

“It’ll be fine,” Nott assured him glancing over her shoulder as she opened the door. As she was turning back to look where she was going, she saw something rectangular—a refrigerator attached to a rope—move in the warehouse, and in the instant it took for her to realize the rope led towards her, the loop on the ground caught her foot. “Fuck!” she shouted, and then the dirt hit her back and the rope dragged her a foot or two on the ground and yanked her upwards. The world swung and spun around her, chaotic and upside-down. Her backpack slipped off her shoulders and landed on the ground before Caleb finally reached her and caught her arms. She immediately grabbed for his shoulders, clinging to what seemed to be the only steady thing around her, until she finally stopped swaying.

Caleb let go and stepped back. “What _is_ that?” he asked, looking up at where the rope was fastened to a rafter.

“It’s one of Fjord’s fucking traps!” Nott snapped. The blood was already rushing to her head, but she spotted the fridge again across the warehouse, sitting on a table. The other end of the rope was tied securely around it. “That thing’s the counterweight,” she said, pointing to it. “Just—just cut the rope and get me down.”

Caleb nodded and pulled out his knife, but as he climbed onto the table that held the fridge off the ground, Nott heard a familiar snarl from outside.

“Nott?” Caleb called, climbing up onto the fridge and glancing towards the open bay doors.

“Cut faster!” she shouted, pulling out her pistol and aiming for the runner as it appeared in the distance. It was far enough away that she figured she should be able to get a decent shot before it could get close. But before she could fire, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned just in time to catch the Infected that had run straight up to her without her noticing. Its teeth clicked together in front of her nose, and spittle flew from its mouth. She could still tell what it had looked like before it turned.

After a second of struggling, she managed to shove it backwards and shoot it before it could reach for her again. Then she twisted and shot the runner she’d spotted earlier, just before it reached her. But there were more Infected behind it, and the more she gunned down, the more seemed to appear.

“How are you doing on the rope?” she shouted, reaching down—or up?—into her pack and digging out another box of bullets. Her hands were trembling as she reloaded her pistol and stuffed the extras into her hoodie, and she brought the gun up and shot another Infected just seconds before it got to her.

In a pause between the snarls of the Infected, she heard the table below Caleb creak. “Caleb, watch—” was as far as she got before one of the table legs snapped and the fridge toppled over, spilling Caleb onto the ground and yanking her a few feet higher into the air. The warehouse swung around her again, but she managed to keep her bearings. “Are you okay?” she called. Her backpack was out of reach now. Fuck.

“I’m fine!” Caleb snatched his knife off the ground and started working at the rope again.

Immediately, though, Nott noticed a new problem. Now that she was of range, Caleb had become the primary target. The next Infected that stumbled into the warehouse headed straight for him—Nott took aim and shot it once, and then again before it finally crumpled. Caleb glanced down at it.

“Are you done yet?” Nott demanded, her voice high with panic.

Another Infected rounded the corner and sprinted towards Caleb. She shot it, but it only stumbled backwards. When she tried to fire again, nothing happened. The chamber was empty. Swearing, she dug into her pocket. Caleb glanced over his shoulder and shifted his stance so he could keep an eye on the creature, but he kept sawing at the rope, glancing up. “Nott!” he called nervously.

“Give me a second!” Nott finally reloaded the pistol, and the Infected was two steps away from Caleb when she put a bullet in the side of its head.

Then, suddenly, the rope on her ankle was loose and her stomach turned as she dropped down and crumpled into the dirt headfirst. As she rolled over onto her elbows, she heard Caleb shout, “Look out!”

She flipped over and caught an Infected just before it bit her face off. Caleb was struggling somewhere out of sight, and as long as she still heard him, she figured he was all right. But it didn’t sound like he was going to be able to help her out. Her mind raced. There was no way she could get rid of this thing by herself, but it didn’t seem like Caleb would get to her in time to help.

As she was in the middle of that thought, a large blade swung out of nowhere and sank halfway into the Infected’s face. As Nott shoved it upward, the blade swung again and decapitated it. The head went one way and Nott threw the body in the other. Before she could even look up, a large hand had wrapped around her upper arm and was dragging her upwards. “Get on your feet,” rumbled a deep, familiar voice with a Southern accent. There was a rather tall, handsome man with short-cropped dark hair standing over her, gripping a machete in one hand. He picked up her backpack and shoved it into her hands as he called across the warehouse, “Jester, have you got the other one?”

“Yes, I’ve got him!” came an equally familiar voice. Nott looked over and saw Jester, a pretty woman with dark, shoulder-length hair, standing beside Caleb. In both hands she gripped a traffic sign painted to look like a lollipop. Caleb still had his knife out, and he had one hand in his jacket pocket where he kept his cherry bombs.

“All right,” said Fjord, shifting his grip on his machete and turning to face the gathered horde of Infected. “Let’s figure out how we’re getting out of this one.”


	7. Summer, Part 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wild day yesterday, so I didn't get a chance to update. Here's the new chapter! Time to make new friends and armor up.
> 
> (I'm trying not to spend too much time on talking and exposition and talking and stuff, since Summer is long enough as is.)

Nott had never seen Fjord and Jester fight before, but she really wished she had. Fjord was like a demon with that machete; few of the Infected could get close enough to touch him, much less hurt him. Jester, meanwhile, swept her lollipop club into groups of Infected so hard it crushed them against the wall. The _crunch_ that resulted was a little nauseating, but there wasn't much time to dwell on it. With Jester clearing a path in the front and Fjord bringing up the rear, and Caleb and Nott taking care of any stragglers that got past the other two, they made their way through the streets away from the warehouse.

“In here!” Jester called, ducking through an open door. They followed after her, and as Fjord dove through the doorway, Caleb and Jester pushed the door shut and Jester threw the lock. A runner slammed into the other side, but the door held. The four of them stepped back from the door as the Infected slammed the door a couple more times, trying in vain to break through. Then, after a moment, the snarls ceased and the dragging footsteps wandered away. Nott let out the breath she’d been holding.

“Either of you bit?” Fjord asked. He was still gripping his machete and eyeing the two of them warily.

“I’m sure they’re fine, Fjord!” Jester dropped her weapon against the wall and then lifted Nott off the ground in a bear hug that squeezed the breath from her lungs. “I’m so glad to see you, Nott! Who’s this smelly man who’s with you?” She set Nott back on her feet and smiled over at Caleb. Caleb stepped back as if to avoid the same treatment Nott.

“This is Caleb,” Nott told them, rubbing her aching ribcage. “He’s, uh… we’re traveling together. Thanks for saving us.”

“It was no problem,” Jester said cheerfully, but Fjord didn’t seem to agree; he remained by the door, studying Caleb mistrustfully. Caleb, who had moved to stand behind a table, kept his gaze on everyone else’s feet. At least, he did until Jester gasped and said, "Fjord, there's a cat!"

Caleb looked up with everyone else to find Fumpkin standing outside one of the windows, meowing plaintively. Caleb sighed. "Nott, would you help met let him in?"

Nott climbed up a shelf and unlocked the window as the rest of them watch. Jester's hands were clasped together and her eyes were shining. "Is that  _your_ cat?" she asked.

"Yes." Caleb raised his arms to catch Frumpkin as he hopped down. "Of course  _now_ you're back, little monster." He muttered as the cat curled around his shoulders. "Thank you, Nott."

Jester flounced over and leaned close to Frumpkin. "Can I pet him?" she asked Caleb. The cat sniffed her face, and then pushed away from Caleb to sniff her face a little closer. 

Caleb huffed. "Apparently," he said. When he loosened his grip, Frumpkin immediately leaped over to Jester and settled on her shoulders. "He seems to like you. His name is Frumpkin."

“It’s nice to meet you!” Jester replied cheerfully. “My name is Jester! This is Fjord!” She gestured over her shoulder. Fjord nodded but said nothing.

Caleb nodded slowly. “It is nice to meet you as well,” he said without quite looking her in the eye.

Nott heard a scraping noise and looked over just as Fjord finished sheathing his machete. “What brings you out here, Nott?” he asked. “I’m not sure I believe you brought this man all the way outside the city just to visit us.”

“Have you brought him to find out about the Traveler?” Jester asked, perking up. She turned to Caleb again and slapped her hands down on the table, leaning forward excitedly. “Have you heard about the Traveler?”

“I… no?” Caleb took a step back and glanced at Nott as if looking for some indication of how to react. She just shrugged.

Fjord interrupted before Jester could get going, though. “Maybe you can tell him later, Jester. Let them explain why they’re here first.”

“Well…” Nott shuffled her feet nervously. “We… sort of need a car.”

Fjord snorted. “Yeah, so do we. What’s your point?”

“We were hoping you might be able to help,” Caleb clarified. He was now standing with his back against the shelves that lined the wall. He didn’t have any weapons out, but he looked wary of any movement.

“Well, we can’t help you,” Fjord said. “Sorry. We don’t have anything that runs. And if we did, I imagine we’d need it more than you do.”

Nott drooped. “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

There was a long pause. Then Jester turned to Fjord, and although Nott couldn’t see her face, she knew what Jester was doing. She had the best puppy eyes Nott had ever seen. Fjord looked at her, and then quickly away. “Now, Jester—” he began.

“We might be able to find them something!” Jester stepped towards him. “There’s lots of parts in town, we could put something together!”

“Jester, we have no reason to help them."

“But Nott’s our friend! And Caleb's letting me hold his cat!"

“She hasn’t even told us what he’s doing here,” Fjord retorted, gesturing to Caleb. “Who even _is_ this guy, Nott?”

“He’s a job, okay?” Nott replied, agitated. “I’m trying to get him to… um, Wyoming, right?” She looked at Caleb for confirmation. He nodded. “Wyoming,” she repeated to Fjord and Jester again. “And it’s really far away, so we need a car to get there.”

Fjord crossed his arms and focused on Caleb, his eyes narrowing just a little. “And what are you trying to get all the way out there for?”

Caleb and Nott exchanged an uneasy look, and Caleb subconsciously put a hand over the bite hidden under his sleeve.

Thankfully, Jester broke in. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell us,” she assured them. “Fjord, didn’t a truck crash a little while ago? They got killed by the Infected, right? Their car should still work, shouldn't it?”

He hesitated. “That's on the other side of town, Jester.”

“We got all the way out here already,” Nott pointed out.

“And with four of us working together,” Jester added brightly, “It’ll be easy!”

Fjord looked around at them, but Nott knew that he never could say no to Jester. Under the weight of those big blue eyes, his defenses broke down within seconds. He sighed. “All right,” he said at last, and Jester pumped her fists in the air and cheered. Nott grinned up at Caleb, and he smiled wearily back.

“Now, hold on,” Fjord said, holding up a hand. “If we’re going to do this, we need to plan it out.” He took a map from his bag and shoved some odds and ends off the table so he could spread it out on a flat surface. “So we’re here,” he said, pointing, “And that car is here.” He pointed a little ways away.

“That’s not too far,” Jester said.

“Yeah.” Fjord rolled up the map and tucked it away. “If you see anything around here you think is gonna be useful, I suggest you go ahead and stock up."

Neither Caleb nor Nott had taken the time to look around the building, but now that they did, they saw that they were in what used to be a bar. Caleb immediately stepped behind the counter and started pulling unbroken bottles off the shelves and checking the labels.

“You looking for something to drink?” Fjord asked skeptically.

“Alcohol is flammable,” Caleb replied simply, setting some bottles on the counter and crouching down out of sight. He rummaged around under the bar for a moment, and then came up with a box labeled, _RAGS_ _._ Methodically he began popping tops off of bottles and stuffing rags into the openings. Nott climbed up to sit cross-legged on the counter beside him, and made a couple more Molotov cocktails for herself. Then, with that done, she started checking the shelves for whiskey.

While they stocked up, Fjord leaned against a wall and glanced out the window every so often. Jester sat on a table, swinging her feet and drawing in a little notebook. Once Nott finished filling her flask, she screwed the top back on and wandered over to Jester. “What are you drawing?” she asked.

“You!” she showed Nott a drawing of a small person in a hoodie hanging upside-down by one ankle.

“Oh,” said Nott. “And is that Caleb?” she pointed to a quick sketch on the other page. It was a fair likeness of him.

“Yes,” she said. “He was fun to draw, even if he doesn’t smell very good. How did you meet him?”

“We just… ran into each other,” Nott replied haltingly.

“Is he paying you a lot to get him to Wyoming?”

“…Not exactly,” Nott began, but just then, Caleb finished with the Molotov cocktails and climbed back over the counter. "I am ready when you all are," he said.

“Okay.” Fjord headed across the room to a staircase. “Stay right behind us, got it? First place we’re headed is mine and Jester’s other safehouse. It’s more of an armory, and we’re going to need more weapons to get to that car.”

“We’ll be there in no time,” Jester assured the others. Then she trotted out ahead of them, humming a tune.

 

It wasn’t difficult to get to the armory. They had a few run-ins with Infected, but Jester and Fjord were a comfortable team. Nott and Caleb mostly stayed out of the way while the other two carved through them.

Only a few blocks away, Jester led them up a hill to an abandoned church. “It’s here in the cellar,” she said, unlocking the door and pulling it open. “After you!”

They trotted down the stairs, and Nott pulled her mask a little farther up over her nose. The whole place stank of mold and old metal. Fjord brushed past Caleb with a muttered, “Don’t touch anything,” and headed for the shelves. Behind them, Jester shut the door before trotting up to stand between Nott and Caleb. But she was only there for a couple of seconds before she abruptly said, “Oh!” and trotted off into another room without another word.

Moments later, she returned holding a crossbow. “Nott, you know how to use one of these, right?”

Nott lit up. “ _Yes!_ ” She ran over and grabbed it out of Jester’s ands. It was a little heavier than her old one, but she figured she could adjust. “Where did you get one of these? I lost mine months ago!”

“I’ve had it for a while.” Jester clasped her hands behind her back, smiling brightly and bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I thought you might want a decent weapon. What about you, Caleb? Do you know how to use any weapons?”

“I’ve used guns before,” he said slowly. “But nothing like that."

Fjord spoke up from across the room. “Don’t give him any of our guns, Jester,” he said. “We don’t have enough to spare.” Jester stuck out her tongue at him.

Realizing that Caleb still only had a knife and his little grenades, Nott  took out her pistol and offered it to Caleb. “Here,” she said. “You can have this one, since I've got this." She indicated her crossbow. "And the bullets.” She put the gun on a table and swung her pack off her back so she could fish through it, setting out a box, followed by a couple more fistfuls of bullets.

Caleb nodded solemnly. “Thank you.” He tucked the gun in his back pocket and filled his jacket pockets with the extra bullets.

As Caleb finished putting everything away, Fjord stepped out of the shelves and told them, “You guys also might want to have one of these.”

“What are they?” Caleb asked, approaching warily.

“Nail bombs.” Fjord held up what looked like a can with a couple dozen nails and scissors sticking out of it. “Once it blows up, it shreds pretty much anybody nearby.”

“It was my idea,” Jester said, lifting her chin proudly.

Caleb looked at her. “Of course it was.”

“Here.” Fjord held it out. “We've got plenty of supplies for these. You can have his one, since it doesn’t seem like you can do much else. Just remember to throw it _away_ from the rest of us.”

Caleb quietly took the nail bomb but didn’t put it in his pack.

As they set out through the graveyard, Jester explained how a military truck had been overrun by Infected and crashed into the side of the high school nearby. “The battery in it should be all right, though,” she said. “We’ve tried to take a couple of those trucks down before, but they’re really tough.”

“Let’s just hope nobody else had the same idea as us,” Fjord said wearily as he led the way up the stairs and out into the open.


	8. Summer, Part 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to realize that Summer takes up, like, half the game. Geez.

They didn’t run into many more Infected as they made their way through the rest of the town, but as they approached the school, the reason became increasingly obvious. Half the Infected in the city seemed to be clustered around that school, lurching around the rusted yellow buses. Some of them still wore military uniforms.

“Damn it,” Fjord muttered. The four of them were clustered behind a broken-down car, and he was the only one tall enough to see over it. “We’re going to have to go through them to get to the truck. That’s it right there.” He pointed.

“It looks like it went through the wall,” Nott added, squinting through the windows. “So the battery’s in the school, isn’t it? Is there a way inside?”

“The door, I imagine.” Fjord got to his feet. “Let’s go. Try to keep quiet as long as you can.” He started to move out of the hiding spot, but Nott stopped him.

“Let me go out ahead,” she said, already pulling out her flask and unscrewing the top. “I can shoot from on top of a school bus.”

“If you can even get out there,” Fjord replied.

But she’d already taken a swig and tucked the flask away again. “I’ll be fine,” she assured him, but her voice squeaked a little and her expression was not at all reassuring. Without giving anyone a chance to reply, she darted off around the side of a bus. 

Jester looked worriedly at Fjord. “We should go after her.”

“Just give her a minute,” Fjord replied, shooting a glance over the car again. “I’m sure she wouldn’t do anything that might dump this guy on us.” He glanced at Caleb, who was looking really rather gray in the face. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he said faintly.

Just then, they heard snarls from the other side of the car and instinctively looked towards them. Across the parking lot, a small figure in a hoodie scrambled up on top of a school bus. Below her, several Infected clawed at the windows, trying and failing to climb up after her.

Nott looked up at them and waved. Then she moved to the edge of the bus, aimed straight down, and fired a bolt directly into an Infected. It screamed and fell back onto the pavement, but more took its place.

“She’s drawn quite a crowd,” Fjord said, stepping away from the car and leading the others closer. “Let’s go while she’s got them distracted.”

Caleb glanced nervously towards the gathering Infected. “How is she going to get down?”

“I’m sure she’ll figure that out,” Fjord replied.

They ducked from car to bus to car again, moving closer and closer to the school. They were a little more than halfway there when one of the Infected turned away from Nott and spotted them. It gave a rattling shriek that echoed off the school, and immediately, others started turning towards them.

“ _Run!_ ” Fjord shouted. He swung his machete cut down a runner right before it reached him. Caleb raised the pistol and shot another one about a second and a half before Jester swung her lollipop club and crushed it and three others against a bus.

“Don’t worry, you’re doing great!” she told him.

He nodded, out of breath. And then Nott shouted across the parking lot, “ _Caleb, look out!_ ”

Before he could turn around, something slammed into his back and he was suddenly on his stomach on the ground. Jester’s yelp of “Caleb!” was nearly drowned out by the snarling of the Infected that had just tackled him. Icy panic washed through his veins. His pistol was gone from his hand. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Then: _thunk!_

The snarls abruptly stopped, and the Infected collapsed, still half on top of him. He finally unfroze enough to scramble out from under it. The pistol was on the ground nearby, beside a half-rotten tire. He snatched it off the ground, trembling from head to toe. 

A hand came down on the shoulder, and he yelled in panic but looked before he fired. Which was good, because it was Fjord standing behind him. “You okay?” he asked, drawing Caleb backwards and hacking at another Infected when it got too close.

“What was that?” Caleb managed. “What happened? Why did it—”

“Nott got it,” Fjord replied. “Did it bite you?”

Caleb looked down. “No,” he said, relief evident in his voice. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, we’ll get you to check a little closer when we’re outta this.”

“Fjord!” Jester shouted. She’d reached the doors and was pulling on them, to no avail. “They’re locked!”

“Did you try pushing?” Fjord called back.

“I tried that _first!_ We’re going to have to find another way in!”

Fjord swore under his breath. “Nott!” he called. “We’re going around the side!”

“Got it!” she called back. Then she took a couple steps back, bounced a couple of times on the balls of her feet, and sprinted along the bus. Caleb bit back a gasp as she leaped off the front, and for a terrifying second, it looked like she wasn’t going to reach the next one. But she flung her arms out and slammed into the edge of the bus’s roof, clambering up before any of the Infected could reach her.

“Caleb, let’s _go!_ ” Fjord grabbed his arm. “She’ll make her way over here!”

After a moment’s hesitation, Caleb turned and ran after Fjord and Jester. They led him around towards the dumpsters, leaving the Infected lurching after them. “This window’s open!” Jester told them, gesturing to a window up above the dumpster. It was small, just barely big enough for them to fit through.

Fjord climbed up and through without pausing. “You next!” Jester told Caleb.

“What about—

Nott appeared suddenly next to him, breathing heavily. “ _Go!_ ” she told him.

He climbed up and through without further protest. Jester followed him as the sounds of the Infected grew closer. Nott hopped up to hook her arms through the window, trying without success to pull herself through. Her shoes scraped frantically against the bricks, searching for a toehold as the runners drew closer.  Caleb and Jester lurched forward at the same time, grabbing Nott’s arms and pulling her through. Jester pushed the window shut. The sounds of the Infected were instantly quieter, but their sunken faces appeared immediately on the other side of the dirty glass.

“That’s not gonna hold,” Fjord said grimly. Nearby, something slammed into the other side of the school’s double doors. Caleb grabbed a shelf and started trying to push it in front of the doors. Nott and Jester ran over to help.

Across the room, Fjord pried the hood of the truck up and gave a huff of relief, or maybe victory. “It’s here!” He reached in and started disconnecting the battery.

“You’d better hurry,” Caleb replied. The shelf was heavy enough to slow the Infected down, but it wouldn’t stop them forever. They slammed into the doors again, and the shelf rocked back and forth threateningly.

Nott trotted backwards away from it. “Fjord, do you have it yet?”

“Got it!” Fjord dragged the battery out. “Jester! Let me see your bag!”

She ran over, already slinging it off her back and unzipping it. Fjord stuffed the battery inside, and she zipped it and slung it over her shoulder again. “Let’s get out of here!” she said, hefting her sign club. “Follow me!”

They unquestioningly sprinted down the hall after her. Behind them, the doors gave way and the shelf tilted over and hit the floor with a _slam_ that echoed through the whole school. Shrieks filled the hallway.

“This way!” Jester ripped a door open and dashed through. As Caleb followed her, he glanced over his shoulder and spotted the Infected spilling through the double doors, climbing over the wreckage of the shelf.

They stumbled into what had once been a gym; Fjord paused long enough to barricade the doors they’d come through. “The window!” Nott told them, pointing. Above the bleachers, which were pushed flat against the wall, a tree branch had grown through where a window used to be. The four of them immediately sprinted towards it.

Nott reached it first and climbed up, her small hands and feet easily finding purchase between the seats. Jester managed to pull herself up, and she was turning to help Fjord when the doors at the other end of the gym slammed open and a horde of Infected tumbled through. Caleb fumbled for his pistol in panic.

“No time!” Fjord and Jester were reaching down for him.

He threw one last glance at the Infected, and then grabbed their hands. They dragged him up with surprising strength—more from Jester than from Fjord, really—and then his feet were clear of the Infected just as they slammed into the bleachers where he’d been standing just a second before. The four of them hopped down from the window into an alley between the school and what an abandoned housing development. Immediately, more Infected appeared around the side of the school.

Without a word, they sprinted down the alley until Nott found a place they could climb over the fence and get into one of the houses. Fjord was the last one in; he pulled the sliding glass door shut and took two stumbling steps backwards.

They waited in tense silence, holding their breath as the frenzied sounds of their pursuers faded and the Infected lurched off somewhere else. When it was apparent they were safe for now, Fjord exhaled heavily. Jester lowered her sign club to the floor. Caleb leaned back against the wall in a sort of daze. Nott sat down on the carpet, took out her flask again, and took a hearty gulp.

After a moment or two, Fjord refocused on the task at hand. “Jester,” he said. “Can I see that battery?”

Jester produced the battery, and Fjord sighed. “All right,” he said. “Let’s see if we can figure this out.” He looked up at Nott and Caleb. “Unless either of you are particularly good with cars.”

Nott shook her head, and Caleb just slid down the wall and sat there with his elbows on his knees, still struggling to catch his breath.

“All right. I’ll find us a car to hook this up to. Come find us when you two are all rested up.”

Nott nodded, and once they'd left, she sat down next to Caleb. "Are you all right?" she asked quietly.

Before he could answer, something scratched at the window. Both of them jumped, and Nott was already half on her feet when she realized that it was not an Infected, but Frumpkin sitting outside. She managed a laugh. "I didn't even realize you'd disappeared!" she said, opening the window to let him in. Frumpkin trilled and hopped down to snuggled up against Caleb. Once the window was closed and locked again, Nott sat down on Caleb's other side to wait.

         

It was a while before Caleb could get up and walk again. He was still shaking badly, but having Frumpkin seemed to help. After a couple minutes of searching, they found Jester and Fjord with a truck a couple of houses down. Jester was holding the hood up while Fjord fiddled with the engine. Nott stepped into the garage first and asked, How’s it going?”

Jester looked up. “We’re just finishing!” she exclaimed. With her focus off of Fjord, she let the hood down a few inches.

 “Jester! Hood!” Fjord protested, ducking lower.

 “Oh, sorry!” She lifted it up again.

Caleb leaned against the doorframe. “Is there any way we can help?”

“Not really.” Fjord stepped away from the car and straightened, wiping his hands on his pants. “It looks like it should run.”

“Only one way to find out,” Caleb replied, stepping towards the car. “Are there keys in it?”

“I have them!” Jester raised the keyring and shook it a little. The keys jingled. “But maybe we should all get in first.”

“Why?” asked Nott.

“There’s Infected all over the place.” She pointed to the window.

Nott headed over and squinted through the dirty glass. It was difficult to make out more than dark shapes, but she could see two or three lurching forms out on the street.

She turned back to the room. “Okay, so how are we doing this?”

It took some rearrangement, but eventually they decided on a plan. Caleb sat in the front, in the drivers’ seat, and Nott took up a defensive position in the truck bed with her crossbow. Jester stood next to the garage door, gripping the chain. Fjord knelt in the back with Nott, his machete in his hand.

"Ready?” Jester asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” Caleb replied. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Frumpkin sat in the seat next to him.

Jester dragged down on the chain, and with a screech of metal, the garage door rattled loudly upward. An Infected wandering a yard across the street turned towards the noise and snarled.

Caleb turned the key, and for an awful second, the engine just sputtered weakly. But on the second try it came to life. Caleb threw it into Drive and hit the gas, and the truck peeled out of the garage. He glanced back in time to see Jester catch the back gate and heave herself into the truck bed, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

But a split second later, the garage door fell with a _bang_ that echoed up the entire street. A cold feeling washed through Caleb’s veins as he saw every Infected in view turn towards them. He couldn’t gather the courage to look around; he just floored the gas pedal.

In the back, Jester picked up her lollipop club and took up a position next to Fjord. “This is the most fun I’ve had since last week!” she exclaimed.

Nott glanced over. “What did you do last week?”

Before she could reply, Fjord pointed over her shoulder. “Nott!”

Nott turned around and spotted an Infected stumbling out of an alley. She raised her crossbow and killed it, but there were more coming. Nott dumped a cluster of bolts on the bed at her side and loaded the next one as the Infected swarmed towards them.

The next few minutes blurred together in memory. Somehow Caleb navigated his way out of the suburb, leaving the Infected stumbling behind them and growing smaller and smaller in the distance. He slowed down somewhat once they were well out of sight. A while later, on a hillside road towards outside of town, Fjord knocked his fist on the side of the truck and called, “Let us off here.”

Caleb slowed and stopped, but kept the engine running as Jester, Fjord, and Nott got out of the back. Caleb opened the drivers’ side door but didn’t get out.

“That was not the day I’d been expecting to have,” Fjord remarked, looking down the road the way they’d come.

Jester lifted Nott up off the ground again in a bear hug. “Good luck, Nott! I hope you get to where you are going!”

“Thanks,” Nott wheezed, managing to pat Jester weakly on the back.

Once Nott had her feet on the ground again, something seemed to occur to Fjord. He swung his pack off onto the ground and fished around for a moment, before he finally pulled out something made of fabric and tossed it to Nott. “Here.”

She caught it. It looked like some kind of water skin. “What is this?”

“You’d be amazed how many cars still have gas in them.” Fjord shouldered his pack again. “Now, get out of our town before this day gets any more interesting.”

Nott was startled into giving a small snort of laughter. “Thanks, you guys.”

With that, Fjord and Jester set out back towards their home. Jester trotted down the hill ahead of Fjord, calling, "Goodbye, Nott! Goodbye, Caleb!" over her shoulder.

Nott waved back, turning away before they were out of sight. “All right,” she said, climbing into the passenger seat with Frumpkin and pulling the door shut. “To Wyoming.”

“To Beau,” Caleb added, putting the car in gear again. Ahead of them, clouds were gathering on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting late because longer chapter and also that thing about not being drunk if you can still hold your arm out to the side and bend your elbow to touch your nose is bull. Anyone who tells you that is lying. Take notes, kids.
> 
> On a related note, I can now accurately write what it feels like to have a hangover for an entire day. Whoopee!


	9. Summer, Part 8

Rain drummed on the roof of the truck, a comforting din of white noise. Frumpkin was curled up in the passenger's seat, asleep. And with no Infected around for the past few hours, and no people, either, Caleb had relaxed to the point that he was feeling a little drowsy, himself.

“Hey, Caleb,” Nott suddenly piped up from the back.

He jumped. “Uh—yes?” he asked. “I—hold on a moment. I thought you went to sleep.”

“I did,” she said. “I woke up. But, I was wondering, you know books, right?”

“Yes?” he repeated slowly, wondering where this was going.

“Do you know how this one ends?” She held out a small novel. “The pages at the end are all wet and I can’t read them.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the title. It didn’t look familiar. “No,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”

“Damn it.” There was a rustling sound. Caleb reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror until he could see her stuffing the book into her backpack.

“Where did you get that?” he asked. “Have you had it with you this whole time?”

“No, I picked it up back in the town with Jester and Fjord.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Did you get anything else?”

“I’ve got some pretty things,” she told him, pulling out a handful of quarters, a small vial of glitter, and what looked like a small jewel. Judging by the way it rolled across her palm when she held it out, it was probably plastic. “And I have this.” She held out a cassette tape in her other hand. “Do you know this one?”

Caleb took it and snorted when he read the name. “That is actually older than I am,” he said.

“But it might keep you awake."

The tips of Caleb’s ears turned red, but he decided not to respond. Instead, he just pushed the cassette player into the truck’s tape deck and hit _play_. As tinny music filtered out of the speakers, Nott reached around the seat to pull Frumpkin to one side so she could climb back into the front. Frumpkin made a noise of irritation but didn't resist, and Nott managed to get into the seat without causing too much of a fuss. Frumpkin climbed into her lap and curled up again. Nott smiled and ran her hand along the cat's side. “You know,” she said after a minute, “this isn’t too bad.”

One corner of Caleb’s mouth quirked. “If you say so.”

She shifted in her seat—not agitated, or uncomfortable. There was just a sort of restless energy. A moment later she asked, “Want me to take a turn driving?”

He glanced at her in surprise. “You know how to drive?”

She hesitated for the space of a beat. “Yeah,” she decided, too confidently. “I even stole a military truck once, back in the city.”

He glanced at her, almost impressed. “And how far did you get?”

She looked out through the windshield, deliberately not meeting his eyes. “…Pretty far.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a ghost of a smile on Caleb's face. “Did you really?”

“…Okay, I might have hit a fire hydrant after one block. But there’s no fire hydrants out here! And I didn't even get in trouble, because they never caught me, so they didn't know who'd done it.”

Caleb huffed, like a laugh drawn out until it was almost a sigh. “I’m not a great driver, either,” he admitted. “Maybe we can take turns.”

“Yeah.” Nott nodded. “We’ll find something for me to sit on so I can see over the dashboard.”

That got a chuckle out of him. Nott turned to watch the road again, sitting up a little straighter and feeling rather accomplished.

 

Hours later, the rain had let up, the sun was out, and Nott was drowsing in the front seat when a shadow fell over her. She looked up. The shadow was cast from a tall building, and as soon as they passed it, another fell over her. And then another one. She rested her elbows on the windowsill and watched them go by. This city was even bigger than the one she’d grown up in. This one had raised highways. And the buildings looked different. More bricks, more decoration—not all bombed-out glass and steel.

But as she was marveling at the buildings, the car slowed to a stop, and Caleb sighed in frustration. She turned to find that the highway split up ahead, and one side was completely blocked off by broken-down cars.

They were silent for a moment. “I guess we could go around?” Nott said.

Caleb paused, and then slowly nodded. “I guess,” he said quietly, turning the wheel and heading down the open street. And the road that way was free of obstructions, though not of obstacles; Caleb had to drive slowly and steer around various cars and broken patches of road. And something felt off. After a little while they reached a truck that blocked the way forward, overturned with its metal belly facing them. The street on the right was blocked by concrete barriers, so Caleb was forced to turn left. Then the next intersection had cars blocking all but the road straight in front. Caleb’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. Nott squinted, peering farther down the road so hard her head hurt.

And then, up ahead, they saw a spot where there were cars and barriers blocking the way completely. Nott opened her mouth to suggest they turn around, but before she could speak, a man stumbled out into the open. He was holding his side, and even from that far back, they could see the blood staining his shirt under his hand. He reached toward their truck, his expression pleading for help.

“Caleb,” Nott warned.

“Yeah,” was the grim reply. Then Caleb floored the gas pedal, and the truck barreled straight towards the man in the road.

The man swore, straightening up and pulling a pistol from his back pocket as more people—too many to count at a glance—swarmed over the overturned cars around them. The man got two rounds through the windshield before the truck slammed into him and he went rolling over the hood.

Frumpkin yowled and Caleb cranked the steering wheel to the right just in time to keep a thrown brick from breaking the windshield, and immediately he swerved back to the other side as a man swung a hammer and shattered the right-side window. Glass rained down on Nott; she threw up her hands to protect her face, and as she lowered them, she caught sight of a bus rolling down a side street just before it broadsided the truck, pushing them off the road. The truck skidded off another car and the wheels bounced over a curb, and then they plowed through a metal bay door and hit a wall with a jolt that felt like it nearly knocked Nott’s teeth loose.

When she shook her vision straight, she saw a half spiderweb of cracks across the windshield, radiating from the low center. Her head ached. There was a burn across her neck where the seatbelt had caught her. Immediately she unclipped the seatbelt as Caleb grunted beside her, lifting a hand to his head. “Are you okay?” she asked. Her leg hurt. Frumpkin's claws had dug through her pants.

“Yeah,” he managed. “Yeah, I’m okay—”

“Then—then get out, we need to—”

Before she could finish, one of the men ripped her door open. “C’mere, you!” he snarled, grabbing her and pulling her out of her seat. She shouted in defiance and she and Caleb grabbed for each other, but Nott’s arms were too short to reach him and he only just managed to catch her foot, trying desperately to pull her back towards him as she fought against her attacker. But then the door on the driver’ side flew open and a hand bashed Caleb’s head against the divider, and he lost his grip.

“Caleb!” Nott shouted as her captor heaved her from the truck.

The man who’d attacked Caleb dragged him out of his seat and threw him on the ground. Before he could get up, the man grabbed the back of his neck and dragged him forward, towards a broken window with several sharp points jutting upward. He pulled Caleb to his feet, and Caleb understood in a flash what was about to happen.

But before the man could push Caleb down towards the jagged glass, Caleb heard a familiar yowl and the man yelled and let go. Caleb stumbled to the side, and his shoulder hit the wall. "What the _fuck?_ " the man shouted behind him, and Caleb looked up as his attacker kicked Frumpkin away. Then a crossbow bolt  _thunked_ into his temple, and he crumpled.

Nott appeared next to Caleb with her crossbow in one hand—apparently, she’d taken down her own captor by herself. “Are you all right?” she asked him, putting her free hand to his arm.

“Yeah,” he managed. His chest was heaving and his legs shook.

“Okay. Okay. Good.” Nott turned away from him and grabbed their backpacks from the truck, tossing Caleb’s at him. He just barely managed to catch it. “Let’s get out of here before they—”

A gun fired and the truck window shattered beside her. She swore and ducked down. “Come on!” she told Caleb, heading for the back of the building. “We’ve got to lose these guys!”

"Wait! Frumpkin!" Caleb ran towards where his cat was still lying on the floor.

" _Caleb!_ " Nott yelped, but he'd already scooped up his cat and was running towards her again.

They climbed over a car and hid for a minute as the ambushers ran past, and then, once they were sure they were safe, they found a way into another building through an open window. Nott climbed through first, and on the other side, she halted and made a face.

Caleb’s feet hit the ground just a split second before the smell hit his nose. “Ugh.” He covered his face with his sleeve. The room was full of corpses in various states of decay, scattered about on the floor, the tables, propped up against the walls. Former victims, no doubt.

“I’m really starting to wish we’d turned around,” Nott said bleakly.

Caleb nodded. "I am too," he murmured. When Nott glanced up at him, saw that he was looking down at his cat.

"Is he okay?" she asked.

"I think so," Caleb murmured, shifting Frumpkin to one arm and rubbing his finger against the cat's face. In response, Frumpkin started to purr. Caleb huffed. "Don't scare me like that," he said. "Yeah, I think he's going to be okay. Come on, little buddy, up you go." He managed to sort of hang Frumpkin across shoulders. "All right," he said. “We should try to get onto a roof. Try to figure out where we are.”

“That sounds good.”

They walked in silence for perhaps a minute and a half before Nott asked, “How did you know about that? About what was going on?” She gestured vaguely to the building where the truck had crashed.

Caleb didn’t reply right away. “I’ve seen it before,” he told her at last. “What about you? How did you know?”

“I’ve…” Nott’s voice was quiet. “I’ve been on both sides.”

They were both pretty quiet following that exchange.

After some searching, they found their way onto the roof. Caleb pointed to a yellow bowstring-arch bridge, just visible between two buildings. “There,” he said. “That’s our way out of the city.”

He started to climb down, but Nott stopped him. “Let me go first,” she said, and started down before he could reply.

         

It was slow going. The city was absolutely crawling with people: watchmen, guards, patrols. Everywhere they turned, they either hid or found themselves being shot at. They had to take a detour at one point to find Nott more bolts for her crossbow. There were no Infected, but the humans were probably worse. Once, when there was no way to sneak around without being spotted, Caleb managed to grab one of the patrolmen from behind and slit his throat before the man could make a sound. He washed the blood from his hands with water they found in a ditch, but he spent the next half hour trying not to look at the reddish stains that remained on his sleeves.

Everywhere they turned, there was evidence of previous military occupation. Somebody had spray-painted _YOU’LL DIE BEFORE WE STARVE_ on the concrete wall of a barrier similar to the ones that had been set back up in Boston. As Caleb and Nott were creeping past the message, Nott lifted her head a little. “I hear hunters,” she reported.

Caleb listened, and sure enough, he could make out voices up ahead:

“I’m so tired,” grumbled one of them. “We were up all night chasing those tourists.”

“Oh yeah, you were part of that? I heard about it this morning.”

“Yeah. They were fucking nightmares to deal with, let me tell you. Even took out a couple of ours.”

“Jesus. How many were there?”

"Ugh. Seven, maybe? Eight? Way too many. We couldn’t fucking catch any of them! They were like a bunch of fucking rats! There was a real big guy, and a few brats. Couple of em’ looked like they might’ve been twins. And this one lady—Christ, she was a monster. Took down, like, three of us before we lost track of her.” A pause, and a sigh. “But I’m sure the other patrols have got them by now.”

“Damn. Wish I could’ve seen that.”

“You don’t, trust me.”

Nott took out one of the guards with her crossbow so they could sneak past him, but just beyond that checkpoint, the ground sloped down into a place where a water main must have burst; the road and the buildings on either side of it were flooded. They were just a hundred feet away from it when Nott abruptly grabbed Caleb’s sleeve and pulled him behind a rusted taxi without saying a word.

He waited in unquestioning silence as she peered around the taxi. “Hunters,” she murmured. Caleb poked his head around the other side and spotted them: two men standing on an overturned bus that acted like a catwalk above the brackish green water. As they watched, the men took one last look around and trotted away into one of the buildings.

“All right,” Nott said, slowly getting to her feet. “I think they’re gone.”

“Good thing you spotted them before they spotted us.” Caleb stood too. “There’s the bridge,” he added, pointing dead ahead. “It looks like we might be a little bit closer.”

“Yeah,” Nott agreed. “I’m glad. I want to get out of this city. It’s awful.”

It was difficult to tell how deep the scummy green water was. Judging by the partially-submerged buildings around them, it was pretty deep. “Maybe we can find a way around…?” Nott said.

Caleb glanced over his shoulder. The hunters’ voices in the distance were definitely getting closer. “I don’t think there’s time,” he said.

Nott glanced at the water, hesitant. “I’ll help you,” she said. “Come on. I think we can climb up over here…”

She led him over the roof of a car that was mostly underwater, and then onto what had once been a storage container. She tried not to look down at the water just a short drop below. But at the end of the container, they reached a problem in the form of a large gap from there to the bus.

“It looks like we could get across on that,” Nott said, pointing to a board on top of the bus.

“I can’t make that jump,” Caleb said, taking a step backwards.

“I probably can,” Nott replied, eyeing the gap speculatively.

Caleb paused, and then slowly nodded. “Give it a try, if you want to.”

She took a few steps back to give herself some run-up space, and then sprinted towards the edge and leaped towards the bus.

The instant after she jumped, she realized it was too far. The gap was too big and the roof was too high, and she wasn’t going to make it. Surprise and fear jolted into her mind, cold and metallic. She reached her arms out and slammed into the edge of the bus, like she had back in the school parking lot with Jester and Fjord, hoping to clamber up to safety.

But this time, her fingers slipped off the smooth metal roof. The soles of her shoes squeaked against the windshield as she slipped down, and she heard Caleb’s shout of, “Nott!” before her hands slipped over the edge and she dropped into the murky water.

From the second it closed over her head, panic filled her mind and the water pressing against her felt like hands holding her under. She thrashed up to the surface and briefly heard Caleb’s voice, but she couldn’t understand the words and then she dipped under again. Her heart was beating in her throat, and her limbs burned with adrenaline and her feet kicked at just water blow her. Vaguely she realized she was sinking, and the surface was getting farther away, and she might as well be swiping at air and—

An arm wrapped around her middle and pulled her upwards, but not very fast. Caleb. He was struggling, though. She did her best to help, probably kicking him more than the water, and after a few moments, her head broke the surface. She started to cough.

Then she felt solid ground under her feet, and Caleb released her. Together they stumbled back onto land. Immediately Nott registered shouting from behind them. She looked over her shoulder and saw two figures on the bus where they’d seen the two men before. They were both looking at her and Caleb. One raised a gun.

“Hunters,” she croaked, grabbing Caleb’s arm and pulling him feebly towards a building. The gun fired twice, but neither bullet hit them; she and Caleb ducked through the doorway and hid behind a counter until the danger had passed.

As the panic faded, Nott realized that her bandanna mask had slipped down to her neck, and her hood was down, as well. She tied the mask back over her mouth and nose and pulled the hood up to block out everything else, and then pulled her knees to her chest, hugging herself. She was trembling from head to toe.

“Are you all right?” Caleb asked. Frumpkin appeared and rubbed up against her, purring. Nott managed a thin laugh. Gingerly she patted the cat on the head, trying not to get him too wet. "Thanks," she said. After a second, she gathered the courage to glance up at Caleb. His hair, once pushed back, now hung in his face. His jacket and backpack were both soaked. He was still breathing hard. Water dripped off of his chin.

“I’m sorry, Caleb,” she mumbled, looking back down. “I thought I could make it.”

“I thought you could, too.” Caleb sat back against the counter and exhaled. “We’ll just find another way around.”

There was a long silence.

 “Well,” said Caleb, “at least it’s warm out. We should dry off soon. Until then, perhaps we should keep moving.”

 “Yeah,” Nott agreed, not looking at him. “Let’s keep moving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to look up what kind of bridge that is. I did not, however, have to look up the slang for a cassette player. I feel old.
> 
> New characters next chapter. Interested to see if anyone can guess who they are. :)
> 
> (EDIT 11/4/2018: I'm taking a short break because I have, like, four papers I'm supposed to be writing for two classes. Will hopefully pick back up next week. Because one of them is due tomorrow and the rest are due towards the end of the semester)


	10. Summer, Part 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a little longer than usual, and I hope it was worth the wait.

“Is your book all right?”

The question startled Caleb out of his thoughts. They’d been climbing through the ruined buildings for a while without speaking, so Nott’s sudden question had caught him off-guard. “Hm?” he said, lifting his head to look at Nott where she’d stopped a few paces ahead of him.

“I asked, is your book all right? The one you were writing in before we left the city?” Frumpkin was riding on her shoulders. He'd climbed up with her instead of Caleb, and he'd let them be. Nott seemed to need the comfort more than he did at the moment.

“Oh.” Caleb glanced over his shoulders at his backpack. “I… haven’t checked. I hope so. I keep it in a sealed bag, so… probably.”

"What do you write in it?”

“Just… ideas. I write down my thoughts, or—or memories.”

“Why memories?” she asked.

He hesitated. “Well, I… there was a time in my life where I…” He realized abruptly that Nott’s footsteps had stopped. He turned to look back and found her standing in front of a clothing store, her attention focused on one of the windows. “Nott?” he inquired, returning to where she’d stopped. She was staring a photo of a model who wore a fashionable hoodie and black jeans, with feathery red hair. The woman’s head was turned to the side a little, and she was laughing at something they couldn’t see.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

Nott didn’t answer him right away, and when she did, her voice was quiet. “She’s pretty.”

Caleb looked between her and the photo. “She’s probably wearing a lot of makeup,” he said, unsure of why Nott had sounded so wistful.

“…Oh.” If anything, she sounded sadder.

Caleb blinked, vaguely alarmed and trying to come up with something to say to fix it. Before he could think of anything, though, Nott looked down and stepped past him. “Let’s keep going,” she said.

They climbed through a hotel, avoiding the hunters when they could, and killing them when they couldn’t. Caleb was starting to think he was never going to get the smell of blood off his clothes. But at least he hadn’t had to use any more Molotovs. There weren’t many Infected around, and he couldn’t bring himself to use them on people.

But then, just a few blocks away from the bridge, they picked up on a sound they hadn’t heard in a while. “Is that… an engine?” Caleb murmured.

“Sounds like it.” Nott waved him over behind a car. Together they waited, listening, as the sound approached. It was definitely an engine—one for a big car, like the trucks that the military used. Nott glanced at Caleb, and her worried expression confirmed what he’d thought.

“We need to get off the street,” Caleb began, and just then, the engine got abruptly louder as the car turned a corner down the road. And then, suddenly, it went quiet. Booted feet hit the ground near it. Nott and Caleb met each other’s wide eyes.

“I see ‘em!” somebody shouted.

Frumpkin scrambled off Nott's shoulders as Nott and Caleb sprang from their hiding place, sprinting for the closest building with the cat just ahead of them.The storefront’s windows were already broken, and as they leaped through and ran for cover, a _pop-pop-pop-pop_ noise of gunfire made Caleb’s blood run cold. “What _is_ that?” he called to Nott.

“A military turret!” she replied. “They must’ve kept one of the trucks!”

A man climbed through a window and aimed his pistol at Nott, but before he could fire, the turret caught him in the leg. He dropped to one knee and swore. “ _Watch it!_ ” he snarled at the drivers, but there was no response.

Meanwhile, Nott and Caleb and Frumpkin bolted through the doors and into an alley, leaving the truck behind on the street. But the men followed, shouting and firing at them at any chance. There was no place to hide, and no time to fire back; all they could do was run away.

“Stairs!” Nott shouted over the gunfire, pointing. There was a fire escape with a ladder leading up to it, partially hidden behind a car. Caleb scrambled up, and Nott grabbed Frumpkin with one arm and followed him, kicking the ladder hard once she reached the top. He caught her idea and kicked it again, and the rusted fastenings gave way; the ladder creaked and toppled over.

“That’ll give us some breathing room,” Nott said, trotting backwards towards the stairs. But the bullets were still a problem; together they climbed up and around the building, and a moment after they turned the corner, the gunfire stopped. But they could hear footsteps down below and knew that they were still being followed.

“This way,” Nott muttered. She put Frumpkin down and climbed over the railing and onto a ledge that wrapped around the building. Caleb swallowed hard and joined her, and Frumpkin slipped between the bars and followed easily. Below them, the men ran past, shouting to each other. But nobody seemed to spot them.

They made their way through the building and were sidling along the ledge on the other side when they heard the approaching sound of the truck again. Caleb bit back a curse. That was all they needed, to be trapped up here on a ledge with those people shooting at them.

But there was a window just behind them. “Back here,” he whispered, moving back the way they’d come. Nott followed him, her eyes on the street below and the approaching shadow of the truck. Caleb put one foot on the windowsill and climbed through.            

But as soon as his shoes hit the floor inside the building, an arm wrapped around his neck from behind, and another hooked under his arm, and he suddenly found his feet dangling off the ground. His hands came up automatically and he pulled at the arm cutting off his air, but it was immovable as stone. He gasped for breath but found none. Frumpkin yowled.

“Caleb!” Nott yelped nearby, and he heard her pull a bolt back in her crossbow. But before she could say anything else, another voice came out of nowhere.

“Don’t do that.”

Caleb’s eyes darted to the fourth person in the room. His vision was blurring, and all he could see was color. A _lot_ of color. The person was holding something metallic—a pipe, maybe?—against the back of Nott’s neck. He couldn’t tell what it was.

But Nott hadn’t lowered the crossbow. “Let him go,” she snapped.

“Just hold on a second,” said the newest person. “Yasha, I think we’ve got a misunderstanding here.”

“Yeah,” said a startlingly soft woman’s voice from behind Caleb. Then the arms abruptly released him. Caleb crumpled to the ground and gulped in a lungful of air, and the gasping turned very quickly into coughing. Frumpkin appeared and meowed, and Nott got to him a second later, dropping her crossbow at her side.

“Caleb? Are you okay? Can you breathe okay?” She was pounding on his back, which wasn’t helping. “Am I helping?”

“I’m—okay—” He managed between coughs. “Please—stop—”

Nott quit hitting his back, instead opting to rest her hand on his shoulder and stand protectively over him.

As he finally looked up, he was completely unprepared for what he saw.

The one who had grabbed him was indeed a woman, tall and muscular with dark hair that faded to white at the ends, and eyes of two different colors. The other one was… difficult to get a beat on. His clothing displayed every color Caleb had seen since the outbreak, and a few he hadn’t seen since before it. His ears were pierced, too, in several places, which was something else Caleb hadn’t seen since he was a teenager. And in each hand, he held an actual, real-life sword.

The one with the swords grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “We’ve been hiding from those guys out there since last night, and we thought you were some of them. But they don’t keep kids around, so when I saw her, I figured you weren’t with them.”

Nott didn't correct him. If they thought she was a kid, let them think she was a kid. 

The one with the swords still hadn't put the swords away. “But you’re not with them, right? Or you’d have tried to kill us by now.”

“No,” Caleb replied. “We’re not.” Something occurred to him. “Are you—are you part of that group we heard them talking about? The ones that came through last night?”

The one with the swords grimaced. “Yeah. We got separated from everybody else, but I’m sure they’re fine. We know how to stick to our groups. We look out for each other.” He smiled fondly at his friend, who nodded solemnly.

Nott piped up. “Last we heard, they hadn’t caught any of them yet.”

The two strangers glanced at each other again. This time, quiet one gave a soft smile. The one with the swords turned back to them with another grin. “That’s some good news, at least. What did you say your names are?”

“My name’s Nott,” Nott replied. “He’s Caleb and he's Frumpkin."

“Nott, Caleb, and Frumpkin,” he repeated. “Well, I’m Mollymauk, though my friends call me Molly, and this is Yasha.” He nodded to his friend, who said nothing. Molly looked back at Caleb and Nott expectantly, but when he didn’t get a response, he went on, “Maybe we can help each other. I’m guessing that you two are trying to get out of here, too?”

"We are,” Nott piped up. Caleb glanced back at her, frowning, and she ducked her head a little. "I mean, we  _are,_ " she told him. "We could use the help."

“We’ve got a hideout not too far from here,” Molly added. “We can talk there, if you want. Or at least get some rest. They haven’t found it yet, and they won’t find it anytime soon.”

Nott looked up at Caleb, her expression hopeful. “It would be good to be able to sit down for a while,” she hazarded.

He paused, shut his eyes, and sighed. “All right,” he agreed. “Take us there.”

         

Nott walked in front with Molly, crossbow drawn and ready. She was quiet for the first few minutes, but Molly managed to draw her out by asking questions about where she was from, how she learned to fire a crossbow, how she came to be traveling with Caleb.

“Why do you have swords?” Nott asked, changing the subject.

"I was the only one in the group without a weapon,” he replied. “And when we found these, I decided I liked how they looked.” He patted the swords. “All they needed was a little sharpening, and then they were usable.”

"Who are the other people in your group?” Nott inquired. She was almost cheerful, trotting along beside him. She seemed to be happy to have more people to talk to. Caleb, on the other hand, trailed behind with Yasha, who seemed comfortable to travel in silence.

Molly poked his head through a doorway at the bottom of the stairs. “Well, there’s Yasha, of course. All clear,” he added, stepping through. On the other side of the doorway was a small shop with a lot of smashed glass cases and large windows facing the street. Molly continued with his explanation. “And there’s Gustav and Desmond, they were kind of our leaders. Then there’s…” He suddenly paused. Nott, also hearing what he heard, tensed.

“Hide,” Nott hissed back at the others. Caleb and Yasha unquestioningly dove for cover, and Nott and Molly crouched behind one of the cases.

Outside, the sound of the truck’s engine drew closer and closer. Nott peered around the case, holding her breath. She could see the truck-mounted turret through the windows, and she watched tensely as it trundled past the store and continued on down the street.

Once the engine sound had disappeared into the distance, Molly let out a breath and got to his feet. Yasha followed suit, and a beat later, so did Caleb and Nott. Molly headed to the window and glanced up and down the street to make sure there was nobody around.

“That thing’s been chasing us since we first got here,” he remarked. “It’s a real pain in the ass.”

“We’ve encountered it before,” Caleb replied.

A corner of Molly’s mouth pulled to one side. “Sorry to hear that. Did they already get the rest of your group?”

“This is the rest of our group.” He gestured to himself and Nott.

“Just the two of you, huh?” Molly exchanged a look with Yasha, but it was difficult to tell what either of them was thinking. “Well, we should get out of here before they come back. The last thing we want is to be cornered in here.”

Caleb looked for Nott and spotted her at the back counter, her attention fixed on something under the glass. “Nott?” he said. “What is it?”

Molly leaned over her to see what she was looking at. “Oh those _are_ nice,” he remarked. “Hey, Yasha, looks like this was a jewelry shop.”

“Huh,” was all Yasha said.

Nott kept her attention fixed on the gems. “Do you think we could take some?”

“We could, but picking the lock would take some time,” Molly said. “And breaking that case would make a lot of noise.”

Caleb added, “And there’s no point carrying jewels anymore. They’re not worth anything, and they take up useful space.”

Nott glanced back at him. Even with her mask covering two-thirds of her face, she looked visibly disappointed. “You’re right,” she muttered, stepping back from the case. “Let’s just go.”

 

With Molly leading the way, they reached their destination without being detected. It seemed that he and Yasha had been here for a while; they knew the safest routes to take. Caleb was surprised when they climbed the stairs to the top floor of an office building, and Molly took out a key and unlocked the door to one of the suites.

Nott asked, “How did you get that?”

“We found it on one of the hunters,” Molly told her lightly. “He wasn’t using it anymore.” He stepped through and held the door open. “Come on.”

Yasha led the others through, and past desks and computers and into a back room that had probably been the boss’s office. There were papers scattered on the dirty carpet, but the leather office chair was still intact. Nott ran over and took a running leap into it, sending it wheeling back into the wall. But she didn’t seem to mind; she just kicked her feet, grinning.

Molly grinned back. “It’s a nice chair, huh? Try pulling that lever under the seat.”

Nott obliged, and the chair dropped a couple of inches. Nott yelped.

"You can make it go up, too,” Molly added.

She looked up at him, eyes wide. “How?”

“I’m sure you can figure it out.”

While Nott messed with the chair and Yasha leaned against the wall, watching her, Molly headed over to Caleb. He’d gone straight to the windows and started tensely keeping watch on the street below.

“They have no idea about this place,” Molly assured him. “We’re perfectly safe.”

Caleb studied him for a moment. “Why haven’t you left?” he asked abruptly.

Molly shrugged. “We’ve been waiting for the right opportunity.”

“Like what?”

Molly nodded to a window across the room. “Take a look down there.”

Caleb went over and looked. Below the building, the hunters had set up a choke point at one of the old steel-and-concrete military gates. There were at least eight of them hanging out around it.

“Every day they gather down there,” Molly explained, leaning against the wall on one elbow. “Guarding that damn bridge.” When Caleb glanced at him, he was still smiling, but his eyes were hard. “But come nightfall, it’s down to a skeleton crew. That would be our best chance to get past them.”

Caleb slowly nodded. “That sounds like it would work.”

Across the room, Yasha showed Nott how to pull the lever and raise the chair again. Nott proceeded to pull the seat all the way up. Then she took a couple of tries to jump up into it. Once she was settled, with her feet dangling off the ground, she looked up at Caleb. She seemed very pleased with herself.

Caleb found himself smiling back. “All right,” he said, turning back to Molly. “So now we wait?”

Molly nodded. “Now we wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be switching to an every-other-week schedule, since I'm in the final weeks of my semester and my workload's picking up.


	11. Summer, Part 10

Nott woke up when somebody spun the office chair around and Frumpkin scrambled out of her lap. She squawked and jumped so hard she nearly topped over the chair’s arm, but she managed to grab onto the chair and steady herself.  “Easy, there,” Molly told her, taking his hand off the back of the chair. “It’s time to go.”

The four of them, plus Frumpkin riding on Caleb's shoulder, exited the office and headed out of the suite. Yasha, brought up the rear, but when she crossed out of the office suite, she left the door open.

“You’re not going to lock it?” Nott asked.

She shook her head. “One way or another, we’re not coming back here.”

In the front, Caleb trotted up to walk next to Molly. “Have you tried this before?” he asked uneasily.

“Relax,” Molly said. “This is your best bet too, isn’t it?”

Caleb decided not to answer that. “What are you two so desperate to get to?” he asked instead.

“What makes you think we’re desperate?” Molly inquired, grinning.

“You’re putting all your hopes on teaming up with two strangers.”

There was a pause, and Mollymauk’s smile faded a little. “We’re supposed to meet up with the rest of our group tonight,” he said. “At a radio tower outside of town. If we’re not there by the time they leave…” He trailed off and shook his head. “Well, it would be a pain to catch up to them, that’s all.” He smiled at Caleb and walked a little faster.

Together, the four of them headed down the building’s stairwell. The only sound was the quiet _clunks_ of their feet on the steps until they reached the bottom. Molly glanced through the door’s window, put a finger to his lips, and pushed the door open. As the rest of them filed into what had probably been a fairly expensive-looking lobby at some point, they saw what Molly had: a campfire lit in an old oil drum, and two men with guns standing with their backs to the group.

Molly caught Nott’s eye. He nodded to her crossbow, and then to Yasha, and raised his eyebrows. Nott nodded and ducked behind a counter, peering over the top to aim. Caleb and Molly hid behind a dilapidated couch and watched as Yasha crept towards the men, silent as a shadow. When she was right up behind them, she motioned to Nott.

The sound of Nott’s crossbow firing wasn’t enough warning; one of the men jolted, gurgling around the bolt that suddenly sprouted from his throat. Before the other man could react, Yasha clapped a hand over his mouth and snapped his neck. The soft _crack_ made Caleb wince, but Molly seemed unaffected. He stood up and headed over to Yasha. “Nicely done,” he told her. To Nott he added, “That was a great shot.”

Light out of the corner of Caleb’s eye caught his attention. He ducked just as a searchlight lanced over his head. The others crouched down as the light swept back towards them. “We have to take that thing out,” Nott muttered, making her way towards them. “You didn’t tell us there was a searchlight.”

“I figured you knew,” Molly replied. “Nott, can you get the guard from here?”

She squinted through the window. “…I think so.”

"You might only have one shot,” he said. “We need you to be sure. Let’s get you closer.”

The four of them crept into the street and moved closer to the searchlight. Whoever was up there manning it didn’t seem to be on very high alert; it didn’t move very often. When they were close enough, they took up positions behind the abandoned cars, and Nott poked her head over the hood of a car and lined up her shot. Caleb watched nervously—her head and arms were completely exposed. If someone fired at her…

As if triggered by the thought, a gunshot split the night. Caleb bit back a gasp, but Nott was still in the same spot as before, and the searchlight had paused on something in the road behind them. They hadn’t seen her yet.

Up on top of the gate, a man said, “Did you get it?”

“No,” was the grudging response. “I don’t think so. I don’t see it.”

The searchlight began to move again. Nott’s shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath… and fired.

There was a strangled cry up on the gate, and the searchlight jumped upwards to point up into the sky. Another voice shouted, “Who’s out there?” before Nott shifted her aim and fired again. This time there was no sound from the victim, save for the _whump_ when he hit the ground in front of the gate. Nott ducked back down.

“Hey!” shouted a third person from in front of the gate. Caleb glanced around a car to see him moving towards Nott’s hiding place, pointing a handgun at the spot where she’d disappeared behind the hood. Caleb took out his pistol, but before he could move to use it, Mollymauk leaped over a taxi and sprinted head-on towards the last man with both swords drawn.

The hunter yelled and fired. The bullet whizzed off into the darkness, and then Molly was on him, running him through. When he yanked the blades out, the man crumpled. Molly turned back to the rest of them. “Let’s move,” he began, and they all heard the familiar rumble of the truck just a beat before it rounded the corner. The turret swung around towards them.

Nott swore.

All at the same time, they sprinted towards a building with a metal garage door. The turret began firing at them. Bullets pinged off a car right on Mollymauk’s heels. Yasha, the closest to the door, reached it first. For a second Nott wondered how they were going to get through, but Yasha was already crouching down, grabbing the bottom of the door, and lifting it high enough for them to get under it. “Over here!” she shouted.

Nott reached her first, barely crouching as she ducked underneath. Caleb was right behind her, diving through the opening, and Frumpkin skittered in after him. The bullets rang against the door, and as he hit the ground and scrambled away from the opening, Yasha lurched and grunted in pain and then the garage door dropped to the ground with a teeth-rattling _bang._

“Yasha!” Nott leaped to her feet as bullets continued to rain across the corrugated metal. Somewhere on the other side, Molly shouted, “Yasha! Here!” and the noise of the bullets slid off the door, moving towards where Molly’s voice had come from. Caleb and Nott listened, horrified, as the sound of the truck’s engine moved away down the street and followed the running footsteps of Mollymauk and Yasha.

For a few moments after the engine noise faded, there was stunned silence. Then Nott looked at Caleb. “They’re going to be okay,” she croaked. “Right?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Yasha’s tough.” Nott turned back to the door. “And Molly’s fast. They’re going to be okay.”

Caleb pushed himself to his feet and picked up Frumpkin. In his mind he was already putting them away. As soon as he heard Yasha get hit, as soon as he heard the truck screech away after them, he’d put them away in a corner of his mind with his parents, with Eodwulf, with Astrid. Gone, gone, gone, all of them.

“We should get out of here,” he said quietly.

“Yeah.” Nott trotted backwards away from the door. “They’ll catch up to us. Or they’ll find their friends. They’ll be okay.”

A quick search gave them a way out of the building. Keeping low to avoid attracting attention, they crept through a building and back out onto the street near an intersection. There was nobody in sight—Mollymauk and Yasha seemed to have drawn them elsewhere.

Nott cautiously straightened. “All right,” she said. “I think we’re—” A light lanced around the street corner, and she cut off. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

A hunter with a rifle rounded the corner, and the beam from his flashlight caught them. The man shouted, “I’ve got two over here!”

Nott grabbed Caleb’s arm and dragged him down the street, towards one of the buildings. The gun fired behind them and the bullet whizzed past Caleb’s ear. As they reached a building and Nott dragged the door open, Caleb glanced back in time to spot the truck with the turret rounding the corner.

“Go, go, _go!_ ” He shoved Nott inside and shoved the door mostly closed. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t completely shut; he and Nott raced through the building as shouts of “They’re in there!” and “Go around and cut them off!” drifted through the door behind them.

At the other end of the building’s lobby there was a set of glass doors that had been chained shut, and Nott and Caleb made a beeline for it. The bridge was easily visible from this vantage point; there was nothing between it and them aside from the roads. “It’s not too far,” Nott panted. “We’ll make it. We’re close.”

She managed to drag the doors open far enough that Caleb could slip through and hold them open for her. On the other side, they had hardly caught their breath before a hunter rounded the corner. “Got ‘em!” he shouted.

They sprinted for the bridge. The truck screeched around a corner and started firing at them. Nott and Caleb were running as hard as they could, vaulting over the concrete barriers and cars when they could, and ducking around them when they couldn’t. The truck’s headlights reflected off the yellow-and-black striped signs along the sides of the road. An electronic road sign shattered in front of Nott and she screamed and ducked around it.

A split second later, she heard a grunt and a _thud_ and a yowl from Frumpkin behind her and glanced back—Caleb was on the ground with bullets still whizzing over his head and Frumpkin struggling to get out from under him. Her heart nearly stopped. “ _Caleb!_ ”

But Caleb was already scrambling to his feet again. “ _Go!_ ” he shouted. Nott turned again and ran with him. Abruptly, she noticed the yellow steel girders on either side of the road. They were on the bridge. They were almost out of the city. They ducked between two buses set across the road with a narrow gap between them—and then they stumbled to a halt.

In front of them, the bridge ended in jagged chunks of concrete. It started up again on the other side of the gap, but there was nearly fifty feet of thin air in the way. A quick glance told them that there was no way across—the whole width of the bridge had fallen away, and the girders along the sides were twisted and broken. Frumpkin ran along the beams ahead of them for a good twenty feet before he seemed to realize Caleb and Nott weren't following. He turned and meowed at them, and came trotting back to climb up onto Caleb.

“Of course,” Caleb wheezed, reaching down to help Frumpkin up again. "Of course the bridge is out."

Nott looked back towards the sound of the truck. No hunters were coming through the gap yet. Good. They weren’t willing to risk the bottleneck. She and Caleb had some time to—

The truck’s tires screeched, and a second later, it crashed into one of the overturned buses. The bus skidded backwards a little, opening the gap a few feet. She could hear the truck backing up, readying to ram it again. "How many bullets do you have left?" she asked Caleb.

“Not enough,” he said, moving towards the jagged edge of the bridge. “I think we are going to have to jump.”

Nott glanced down at the river and immediately regretted it. The water was fast-moving and as dark as the night sky. She didn’t know how deep it was and didn’t really want to. "Caleb, I can't swim! And it's too far, we could break something if we hit the water from this high up!"

"It's our only choice," Caleb told her. "I think I'll be able to get us to shore."

"You _think?_ "

“Nott—”

The truck slammed into the overturned bus again, drawing their attention. The gap was almost big enough for it to fit through.

“There's no time to argue!” Caleb told her. "Nott,  _please!_ "

"What about Frumpkin?"

"Nott! Just—" He tried to pulled Frumpkin off his shoulders, thinking to send him across the beams. But the cat had dug his claws into Caleb's jacket and he didn't seem to be letting go any time soon. "He's got a pretty good grip on me, he'll be fine! We have to go!"

The truck slammed into the bus one last time, and someone shouted, "We got 'em cornered! There! Turn it that way!" And the turret turned with a mechanical whirr.

Nott and Caleb met each other's gaze, and each saw their fear reflected back to them. Then Nott shouted, " _Fine!_ " and grabbed his arm and jumped, pulling Caleb with her.

For a moment they were weightless, and Caleb felt his stomach turn. He instinctively put a hand on Frumpkin as he fell, and he just had time to think _Th_ _is is going to hurt_ before he crashed down into the water. The immediate, stinging pain of hitting the surface was followed by a deep, dull ache that soaked through his body, and he felt the current rip him downriver. Barely able to get his bearings in the disorienting swirl of darkness, he flailed upwards.

His head broke the surface and he scraped in a ragged breath. The oppressive noise of the river battered his head and he could barely see anything with his vision blurred by pain and water. “Nott?” he shouted.

“Caleb!” came the response from somewhere near him. He blindly reached towards the voice, and his hand found fabric and a small, struggling form. Immediately Nott latched onto his arm with both hands and they dragged each other closer . As they finally got close enough to get a decent grip on each other, at least enough that they wouldn’t be separated, Nott looked over Caleb’s shoulder and gasped, “Look—” a split second before something cracked him in the back of the head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What sucks about writing from the POV of a character who gets knocked out is that there's no fade to black. When you get knocked unconscious you just hit something/something hits you and then you just skip to when you wake up on the floor with everybody crowded around you like "hey man are you okay"


	12. Summer, Part 11

Caleb didn’t remember being dragged out of the river, but he awoke on his back on top of wet sand. He was soaked to the skin, and when he breathed in, something caught in his throat. He started to cough, rolling over onto his elbows as he hacked up what was left of the water in his lungs.

“Caleb, I’m right here, are you okay? Can you hear me?” There was a hand on his back. He pried his eyes open and looked up. Nott was on one knee next to him, and when his eyes focused on her face, her worried expression broke into a grin of relief. She turned and called over her shoulder, “He’s awake!”

Still blinking water out of his eyes, Caleb followed her gaze and found Mollymauk standing nearby with his hands on his hips, grinning. “Glad you could join us,” Molly told him.

Caleb stared at him. “You’re alive,” he said numbly.

Molly snorted. “Don’t sound so surprised. We’ve survived idiots with guns before.”

 _We,_ he’d said. Caleb looked past him and spotted Yasha lurking nearby with her arms crossed. When they locked eyes, she nodded in greeting. There was a piece of fabric tied around her calf that hadn’t been there before, but she didn’t seem all that much worse for the wear.

“Oh.” He wasn’t used to people turning up again after he thought they were gone. He was… relieved, somewhat. But he’d closed off Molly and Yasha from his mind already. Now they were here again. Which meant they could disappear again. He wasn’t sure what to do with that. “I—I’m glad to see you’re all right.”

“Same here,” Molly replied. “Though I’ll admit it got a little scary for a minute there—when we first pulled you out of the water, you didn’t look so good.”

"You… pulled me out?” he asked.

“Well, Yasha did most of it,” Molly admitted. “But I helped get you away from the water, so you could say it was a team effort.”

“Oh,” Caleb repeated. “…Thank you. To… both of you.”

“I’m glad we spotted you,” Mollymauk told them. “With the four of us, we have a much better chance of reaching the radio tower in time. I don’t know how long they’ll wait for us there, but we should be able to get there before morning. It’s just on the other side of the cliffs here.” He gestured to the sheer rock face looming over them.

“I can’t climb that,” Caleb said, looking up at it. He reached up to his shoulder out of habit to pet Frumpkin, but his hand met empty air. He looked down. Frumpkin wasn't there. He scanned the area. Still no Frumpkin. "Where is...?" 

Then he noticed that Nott was looking at the ground. Molly looked grim, and Yasha looked sad. Caleb scrambled to his feet. "Have—have you seen my cat?" he asked them. "He, he went into the river with us, he was holding on to me..."

Molly nodded. "Nott told us. We didn't see him, though. I'm sorry."

Caleb just stared at him. Then, slowly, he shook his head. "I have to find him," he said. "He's—I have to go look for him."

"It's the middle of the night, Caleb," Nott said. “It'll be really hard to spot him."

Molly took a couple of steps forward. "Look, you're lucky  _you_ survived that. Cats are pretty durable, though. Maybe he managed to get onto dry land."

"Of _course_ he did," Caleb snapped. "I—I—"

A small hand rested on his arm. "Caleb," Nott said quietly. "We can't stay here. Those hunters are still looking for us, and there's nowhere to hide down here. Molly and Yasha found a way out. Wherever Frumpkin is, he'll catch up to us."

Caleb looked down at her, ready to argue, but something in her expression made him pause. Soaking wet as she was, she looked so small and so tired. Slowly, nodded. "All right," he muttered, looking away. "You're right. He'll find us on his own." He paused, and then heaved a sigh and finally looked up at Molly and Yasha. "What is this way out you mentioned?"

 

Molly and Yasha led them to a large pipe sticking out of the rocks. It was big enough that Yasha would probably be able to stand upright inside it, which meant it would definitely fit the rest of them. One problem: there was a grate over the entrance. “We found this while you were taking your nap, there,” Molly explained. “It should lead us to the other side.”

“How are we going to get in?” Nott asked.

Molly grinned. “Yasha, would you do the honors?”

"Gladly.” She stepped forward and pulled. Rust fell away from the hinges, and when Yasha pulled again, it came open. She lifted it far enough to rest it on her shoulder. “Be quick,” she grunted. “It’s pretty heavy.”

Molly slipped inside, and then Nott, and then Caleb. Then the three of them held it open just long enough for Yasha to climb through. They lowered the grate closed with an ominous _bang._

The pipe was partially filled with water. As they headed farther up the pipe, the water level rose to mid-thigh on her. Nott was none too happy about it, but she continued to splash unhappily after Mollymauk.

A little ways up, they reached a place where the sewer split. “Shit,” Nott remarked. “Caleb, should we see what’s this way?” she took a step to the right.

“We’ll check over here,” Mollymauk added, moving in the other direction. “Shout if you find anything.” He headed off with Yasha beside him.

Caleb looked apprehensively down the other pipe. Nott looked up at him. “I can go ahead of you,” she said. “To make sure it’s safe.”

"No.” He crossed his arms uncomfortably. “It’s better to stay together.”

"…All right.”

Even with the flashlight, it was difficult to see more than a few feet in front of them. The water level went down, but not by much; their shoes were still underwater. “I don’t like this place,” Nott muttered. “I hate water.”

“At this point, I do, too.”

They walked in silence for a moment. Nott spoke first. “I meant what I said, back there. About Frumpkin. I'm sure he'll catch up to us."

"Yeah."

Another pause.

"How long do you think they’ll stay with us?” Nott still didn’t look up as she spoke. “All the way to Beau’s?”

Caleb shook his head. “They have a group to get back to.”

Nott didn’t respond right away. It was difficult to make out her expression with her mask on, but there was a tightness around her eyes. “What if their group is gone?” she wanted to know. “What if they left them behind, or what if they’re… dead?”

“Well, that’s not our problem. The fewer people with us, the faster we can move.”

There was another, longer silence. “Yasha told me their group is looking for the Fireflies,” she said slowly.

Caleb glanced down at her in surprise. “When?”

"When you were off talking to Molly earlier. When it was still daylight.” Nott paused as they climbed over a pipe set partway into the ground.

“Well, a lot of people are putting all their hopes into the Fireflies these days.”

There was another pause. The splashes of their footsteps echoed around the pipe.

"They did save us,” Nott said at last.

Caleb glanced down at her again and then trotted up ahead without responding.

Past some collapsed pipes, they found a spot where the ground rose out of the water and a fence blocked the way forward. Caleb tried the gate set into one side, but it was locked. “Damn it,” he muttered.

Splashes behind them drew their attention. Nott whipped around, and the beam of her flashlight landed on Molly standing just beyond the pipes. “Hey, _watch_ it,” he protested, shielding his eyes. “We found a way through on the other side. Come on.”

As they headed for where Yasha was waiting for them, they passed under a part of the ceiling that had caved in, exposing a parking lot above them and, farther up, the stars. Caleb paused underneath the opening, his head craned back to the sky. With all the light pollution from way back when, he hadn’t gotten to see the stars much before the outbreak. He did remember one time, after his father got back from a tour, when the family had gone camping. He’d seen so many stars that night, he’d scarcely been able to believe it. But then they’d gone back home to the suburbs, and he’d never seen those stars again. And since the outbreak… well, he just hadn’t spent much time looking up.

He reached up to rub Frumpkin's head and was once again reminded of his absence.

“Caleb?” Nott asked him. She was standing up ahead, near a place where the tunnel took a sharp turn. “Are you all right?”

"Yes.” He looked back down and trotted to catch up, and just as he reached the corner, he heard Mollymauk’s voice up ahead.

"Well, this is unusual.”

Their two companions were standing in front of a set of double doors. The unusual part was that somebody had painted a crude mural of a castle on the wall around them, with the door in the middle like a drawbridge. The painting was simple, almost childish.

“You think there’s people in there?” Nott asked.

“One way to find out,” Molly replied, stepping forward. He pushed the door open, and as he did, a box swung down from the ceiling ahead of them and released about a dozen glass bottles that fell and shattered on the floor. All of them jumped, and Molly’s hands went to his swords. They waited in tense silence, and there was no other sound and no other movement. Slowly, they relaxed. A little.

Yasha stepped through the door, brushing past Molly. “That’s a sound trap,” she murmured, studying the plastic crate that still swung back and forth from a wire attached to the ceiling.

“A what?” asked Nott.

Caleb glanced backwards down the sewer, but there was no movement there. “It’s a sort of alarm,” he said uneasily. “For whoever lived here.” Nott stepped through the door and continued on inside, leaving Caleb by himself outside with no flashlight. He glanced backwards again, and then hurried through and shut the door behind himself.

The room inside was wrecked. A few toys and a deflated soccer ball sat discarded among the overturned tables and chairs. A sign on the wall listed a set of rules like _Check to make sure all doors are locked,_ and _No noisy play._ And _Run to the hiding spot if you hear the alarm._

Molly nudged a broken table with his foot. “I can’t imagine living in a place like this,” he remarked.

Caleb turned away from the list of rules. “I imagine you could live anywhere if you were sure enough that it was safe.”

They continued on past that room and up a small flight of stairs, and in the tunnel beyond them, they heard an animalistic snarl echo from in front of them. Immediately they all tensed, and Nott and Molly turned off their flashlights. “There’s Infected up ahead,” Nott whispered.

“I think we got that,” Molly replied quietly.

They found a fence and a gate up ahead. Those who had weapons, drew them. Molly stepped through first, followed by Yasha, and then Nott, and last came Caleb. They made their way down another set of stairs to the water level again. As Molly stepped down onto the lower floor, there was noise almost like voices up ahead, but choked and breathy. A human shape staggered down another set of stairs and immediately charged at them.

Molly raised his swords, but before it could reach him, Caleb shot it once, twice, three times, and it fell. Molly glanced up. “Thanks,” he said, sounding almost surprised.

“There’s more,” was Caleb’s half-panicked response. Three more Infected were climbing over the debris and rushing towards them. Nott shot one of them, and Yasha threw one into a wall, where Caleb shot it. Molly slashed the third diagonally across the torso, nearly bisecting it.

After the Infected fell, the group paused and listened for more. But after a long, tense pause, when the heard nothing, Molly carefully lowered his swords. “I guess we know what happened to these people now,” he said.

“Let’s keep going.” Caleb glanced over his shoulder again. This place seemed too big to have only had four people living in it. “The faster we get out of here, the better.”

“I agree with Caleb,” Yasha said quietly.

“I think we all do.” Molly looked down the tunnel, towards where the Infected had come from. “Well,” he said, “onward, I guess.”

As they continued on, Caleb found himself squinting so hard he started to get a headache. Nothing approached them from behind or in front, which was good, he supposed, but… he knew for a fact that there must have been more than three people in here.

They reached another room with a higher ceiling that was partially open to the sky. It seemed like they might be able to get out through there, but the problem was that it was two floors up. A half-rusted catwalk was set close enough that they might be able to get out if they could get up on to it. Except it was too high to get to from where they stood.

Nott shined her flashlight up through the opening. “Maybe we can find a way up,” she said slowly.

“Already on it.” Molly moved into an adjacent room. Caleb edged away from the doorway they’d come through and peered through into the room Molly had entered. There was another fence blocking off part of the room—he was getting awfully tired of fences—with a gate near one wall. Molly opened the gate, and inside the fence, a barrel attached to a rope fell to the ground. Something creaked in the doorway above Caleb.

Nott shouted, “Caleb, _move!_ ”

He leaped forward into the room, just in time to dodge the heavy door dropped down with an echoing _slam_ into the spot he’d been standing. It blocked off the doorway completely, separating Molly and Caleb on one side, and Yasha and Nott on the other.

“Shit!” Nott ran over and stood on her toes to look at them through the small, barred windows. “Caleb, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said. He could feel his heart beating in his throat. His hands were shaking. That noise had to have attracted the attention of whatever Infected were left in this place.

Yasha stepped forward. “Help me lift it,” she said, crouching down. All four of them tried, but even with Yasha’s considerable strength, the door wouldn’t even budge.

And then a clicking noise drifted down a tunnel on Yasha and Nott’s side. Nott turned to look and inhaled sharply. “Clickers!”

Yasha looked through the bars at Molly, her expression tight. If she was going to say something, though, she didn’t get the chance—Nott stepped up to the door. “Stay with Molly,” she told Caleb. “We’ll find a way to get to you!”

“Nott,” Yasha said, stepping away. “We have to go.”

Nott glanced at her, and then towards the approaching sounds of the Clickers. “Stay with him!” she repeated. “Molly, you have to—"

“I’ll take care of him!” Molly interrupted. “ _Go!_ ”

Nott paused for one more tense second, and then she stepped back, glanced down the corridor, and ran off with Yasha right behind her. Not a second later, a group of humanoid forms lurched past the barred windows. Molly put a hand out in front of Caleb and edged backwards from the door, holding his breath. But the creatures trotted past without taking any notice of them.

Once the Clickers had disappeared down the tunnels, Molly lowered his arm. “You all right?” he asked Caleb quietly.

“I’m fine,” Caleb repeated, again. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“All right. Keep that gun of yours handy, I get the feeling we’re going to need it.”

The place was absolutely crawling with Infected. They were wearing sweatpants, nightgowns, pajamas. As Molly and Caleb passed through a room occupied by several cribs and a mat of colorful foam puzzle pieces, Caleb took cold comfort in the fact that they hadn’t seen any children among those Infected. As they passed a bookshelf, Caleb had to stop himself from stopping to scan the titles. He hadn’t had a new book in so long…

Something screeched up ahead, and he peered around the bookshelf in time to see Molly pulling his swords out of a Runner's chest. Molly swore. “Sorry, it saw me. And the other ones are bound to have heard that,” he scanned around the room. “We’ve got to move. It looks like there’s a ladder up on that ledge.” He pointed upwards. Caleb hadn’t noticed that one wall didn’t reach the ceiling—it stopped a few feet above their heads, forming a ledge and a few feet of flat ground. He could just barely see a doorway in the wall past the ledge.

Molly gave him a scrutinizing look. “You don’t look all that strong,” he remarked. Without bothering to wait for a response, he added, “I’ll boost you up.”

“Are you sure you can do that?” Caleb asked.

“No,” said Molly, but he laced his hands together in front of him and crouched a little. “But it’s either this, or we stay down here with those things.”

He had a point. Caleb let Molly boost him up. Truth be told, Molly didn’t seem all that much stronger than Caleb himself, but he was at least strong enough to get Caleb up to the ledge. With both of them working together, Caleb managed to pull himself up far enough to roll onto the flat concrete. As he was dropping the ladder down for Molly, a familiar scratchy voice shouted a curse in the tunnels nearby. And a crossbow fired, and then fired again.

Molly climbed off of the ladder and got to his feet. “Was that Nott?” he asked.

Wordlessly, Caleb moved towards the voice. It led to another ledge, which dropped down into another sort of intersection in the tunnels. Caleb carefully turned and climbed over the edge, lowering himself as far as he could and dropping the rest of the way. As Molly dropped down next to him, the crossbow fired again in one tunnel. A second later, Nott and Yasha came rushing out.

“Caleb!” Nott shouted. “Yasha, it’s them!”

“Keep running,” Yasha said urgently as she dashed by them. Then the Infected started spilling out of the tunnel they’d emerged from, and Caleb and Molly turned and sprinted off after Nott and Yasha with the Infected close on their heels. They ran blindly up a flight of stairs and through a doorway—as soon as Caleb was through, Yasha slammed it behind him. The Infected banged against the other side, but Molly and Nott were already on the other side of the room, pushing and pulling at a door. There was a small window above it, showing the green leaves of a tree and, beyond the branches, the pale blue sky.

“It won’t _open!_ ” Nott shouted.

“Do you think you can get through that window?” Molly asked her.

“Yeah! But—”

He grabbed her off the floor and pushed her up towards it. “Figure out a way to open it from the other side!” he told her, Yasha joined him, practically stuffing Nott through the opening. Nott yelped, and a split second later there was a _thud_ on the other side. “I can see what the problem is,” she told them shrilly.

“Well, do something!” Molly drew his swords and turned towards the other door.

Caleb looked at the door, and then suddenly remembered the bomb that Jester and Fjord had given him. There probably wouldn’t be a better time than now. He ran towards the door and set it down as close as he could get it without losing his nerve. Then he scrambled back to where Molly and Yasha were waiting.

“What was that?” Molly asked him.

“You’ll see,” Caleb replied, pulling out a Molotov and his lighter. "Don't get too close to it before it goes off."

And at that moment, the door at the other end of the room burst open and the Infected poured through. Immediately the bomb exploded, taking out two or three of them. But more clambered over their shrapnel-filled bodies.

Caleb lit the Molotov, muttered to himself, “Don’t freeze up _,_ ” and threw it. He had his pistol out of his belt while the Molotov was still in the air, and he gritted his teeth, bracing himself. The bottle shattered against the concrete floor. The flames leaped onto several of the Infected, and they stopped their charge, thrashing at this untouchable enemy.

Looking at them, Caleb suddenly found himself standing in the woods, watching bodies burn on the ground in front of him. He froze up, staring as the Infected thrashed around at this untouchable enemy. Whichever ones weren’t on fire were still rushing him and the others, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the burning humanoids near the doorway

“Caleb?” Yasha asked. There was no response. Caleb didn’t move.

Molly leaped over a counter and cut down a runner before it could reach him. “Hey! Focus! What are you doing?”

There was still no indication that Caleb even heard him. He simply continued to stare.

“Nott?” Molly called towards the door. He turned to face the Infected and backed up, forcing Caleb towards the wall. “Something’s wrong with Caleb! How’s that door coming?”

“Almost got it!” she called back. Something creaked on the other side of the door, and there was a scrape from near the ground.

Yasha threw a Clicker at another Clicker hard enough to knock both of them down. Then she ripped the arm off another one and used it like a bat, bashing the creature down into the floor.

Then, a few feet away, a runner managed to grab hold of Molly. As he ripped on arm free and killed it, another tackled him to the ground. One of his swords flew and hit the wall, and another skittered against the ground as he fell onto his back. “Yasha, a little help?” he shouted. The runner was snapping at his face as he struggled to hold it back with a forearm across its neck and one foot against its stomach. With his free hand he was frantically grabbing for his sword, which lay just out of his reach.

Caleb blinked slowly and registered that the fight was still going on, and he saw Molly starting to lose ground and Yasha too busy across the room to do anything. Automatically Caleb raised the pistol and fired into the runner’s shoulder. It shrieked in pain, and with that opening, Mollymauk lunged and grabbed his sword and swung it upwards, cutting into the Infected and propelling it off to the side. Instantly Molly rolled over and was on his feet again. He spotted his other sword and snatched it up.

At that moment, the door behind Caleb clunked. “Come on!” Nott shouted. He glanced back. The door was open a little, just far enough for them to slip through.

“Coming!” Molly kicked a Clicker away and ran for the door. Yasha joined him. Caleb slipped through the opening and stumbled away from it, and a moment later Molly and Yasha pushed through, and Molly shoved his shoulder against it and it creaked closed. Yasha grabbed a vending machine that stood just to the side and started pulling it over. Caleb and Nott immediately caught her idea and pushed from the other side until they tipped it over, and it landed with a resounding _clang_ , effectively blocking the exit.

The four of them backed up, breathing heavily, as the Infected snarled and clawed at the door from the inside. A few tense moments passed. The noise on the other side faded, and then ceased as the Infected lost interest. Silence fell over them. One by one, they relaxed.

Then Nott looked up at the wall beside the door, and she straightened. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she said.

Beside the door, scrawled in red spray paint, were the words: _Infected Inside DO NOT OPEN._

“Wow,” said Molly. “Thanks for the warning, guys.”

Caleb shut his eyes and sat down heavily against the wall, struggling to catch his breath. Nott crouched next to him. "Are you all right?" she asked quietly.

He shook his head.

"Do you need to rest for a moment?"

He nodded. Nott asked him something else, but he didn't quite catch it. He just lowered his head and shut his eyes, trying to put his thoughts back in some sort of order. Talking or listening was just too much right now. But Nott's grip on his shoulder tightened, and she said something else. When he didn't respond, she shook him a little and repeated whatever she'd said before.

Then he felt something small press on his leg--a cat paw--and he lifted his head and found himself nose-to-nose with a familiar tabby cat. He stared for a moment, and then wordlessly reached out and pulled Frumpkin closer to himself. Frumpkin nuzzled his face, purring, and Caleb clutched him and focused on the soft fur under his fingers and the sound of the purring. That helped. He sat there for what felt like a long time, just hugging Frumpkin, before he finally settled into his surroundings again. He lifted his head and found the others all sitting nearby, keeping watch in various directions.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"It's fine," Yasha murmured.

Caleb helped Frumpkin up onto his shoulders, but he still kept one hand on the cat's head. “Where… was this tower?” he asked.

Molly sighed and got to his feet. “Close,” he said. “But…” He looked up at the blue sky. “It looks like we were in there for longer than we meant to be.”

“…Oh,” said Nott. “You said they were leaving last night…”

Yasha stepped over to Molly and put a hand on his shoulder, her expression grim. He gave a half smile and patted her hand, then brushed it off. “We might as well go check, at least,” he said. “Maybe they’ll have waited for us.”

“Maybe,” Nott agreed. “Caleb, are you okay to keep moving?”

Caleb exhaled heavily, paused, and then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. "I think so."

“All right.” Molly looked up the hill, towards the steel tower visible over the treetops. “We’re almost there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is the end of Summer, so it's going to be a shorter denouement. We're about halfway through at this point. I'll likely post the next chapter in one week instead of two, since I've got it written already and I'm working on the first chapter of Fall.


	13. Summer Part 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all ready for some sitting around talking?

It was long past noon and getting on towards dusk when they finally reached the radio station. All of them, even Molly, had been silent for the majority of the trip. They approached the building cautiously, keeping a sharp lookout for Infected. But there were none, and they crept up the hill to the entrance. Molly opened the door and called, “Anybody in here?” but there was no response. He headed inside. A moment later he called to the others, “They were here.”

They joined him inside and found him standing at a table, holding a piece of paper. “Everybody got here but you and me, Yasha,” he said. The mix of emotions in his voice was difficult to parse.  “They already left,” he added, reading off the paper. “Around noon. They were headed West.”

“You might be able to catch up if you hurry,” Nott said.

Molly and Yasha looked at each other for a moment. Then Yasha shook her head.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Molly muttered, lowering the paper. “It’s going to be dark before long. We’d be camping out in the open.” He set the note down on the table. “At the very least, we know where they’re going.”

“We’ll stay here tonight,” Yasha murmured. “Then we can leave in the morning after we get some sleep.”

“Yeah. That sounds fine.”

They found a lantern with some kerosene still in it, so they lit it and set it in the middle of the main room. It was _almost_ like a campfire. They sat in a circle around it, watching the tiny flame flicker within the glass in silence. Frumpkin sat at Caleb's side, watching the sparks intently. Caleb kept a hand on the cat's back, ready to squish him against the floor if he moved to jump at the fire.

After a while, Caleb abruptly spoke. “Marshmallows.”

The others looked at him. “What?” said Mollymauk.

Caleb looked around and reddened a little. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I was just thinking… about campfires. And roasting marshmallows.”

Molly gave a quiet laugh. “Yeah. Yasha, have you ever roasted marshmallows?”

“Not since I was little,” she replied quietly.

He looked at Nott. “What about you?”

She glanced at Caleb uncertainly. “What’s... a marshmallow, again?"

“Oh, my _god,_ she doesn’t know what a marshmallow is.” Molly sat back on his hands and shook his head. “ _What_ is the world coming to?”

“It’s not my fault I don't remember them,” Nott muttered in irritation. “ Just tell me what they are.”

“I don’t even know, but they were white and full of sugar and people used to put them over fires to cook them.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Wow, I haven’t thought about marshmallows in a while.”

“Maybe we could find some,” Yasha mused.

“Maybe.”

They fell silent again, watching the lantern. Nott pulled her knees up to her chest and shivered.

“Are you okay?” Caleb asked.

“Just… cold.” She rubbed her arms.

Molly nodded. “Yeah, it’s moving towards fall, isn’t it? Time to scrounge up some warmer clothes again.”

Movement caught Caleb’s eye, and he looked over as Yasha shrugged out of her black-and-white flannel shirt and dropped it over Nott’s shoulders. Nott looked up, startled. “Aren’t you going to get cold?”

Yasha shook her head. “I’m fine.”

They sat in the quiet for a little while. After a few minutes, Molly looked at Nott and abruptly asked her, “How old were you when the outbreak hit?”

She frowned. “Why does it matter?”

“You don’t know what marshmallows are. You must have been pretty young.”

Nott didn’t reply right away. “I think I was pretty young. I have some memories from before it happened, but not a lot of them. The outbreak kind of... took over everything else."

“Oh, wow.” Molly sat back again. “So this all you know, huh? That’s…” He didn’t finish the sentence. There were a lot of adjectives that could fill that space.

Nott eyed him. “How old were you?”

“I actually don’t know,” he replied factually.

Caleb frowned at him. “That’s not really the sort of thing you forget,” he said slowly.

Molly snorted. “Funny way to phrase it,” he told them. “Thing is, I… well, you could say I’m not old enough to remember the outbreak. The group found me… what, two years ago?” He looked at Yasha. She nodded in confirmation. “They thought I was dead. But then I started moving. Scared the shit out of them. Bo almost shot me.” One corner of his mouth pulled to the side. His voice got a little quieter. “I don’t remember anything from before I woke up with them all standing over me.”

 Nott pulled the flannel a little tighter around her shoulders, but she had nothing to say to this story. So, she turned to Yasha. “What about you?” she asked. “How old were you?”

Yasha studied the lantern in silence for a long, long time before she finally shook her head. “I don’t have much of a past to talk about,” she murmured.

Molly spoke up. “What about you, Caleb?”

Caleb exhaled. “I was fourteen, or so.”

There was a pause before Molly asked, “Do you remember where you were when you heard?” He sounded hesitant, as if he figured Caleb might not want to talk about it.

“I was at home,” he said. “I’d gotten back from school a few hours ago. When the—the chaos started, my parents and I escaped, and…” He stopped.

Nott leaned forward, her eyebrows drawn together in concern. “Did you get separated from your parents?”

He swallowed and half-consciously tugged Frumpkin closer. The cat obligingly climbed into his lap and curled up. Caleb rested his hand on Frumpkin for a few seconds before he finally spoke. “That’s… not a story I like to tell.”

Nobody pushed him. After a moment he looked up, and for some reason he found himself seeking Yasha’s gaze. Their eyes met for a second, and he saw understanding there. There were some things you just didn’t talk about.

Then she looked away. “We should get some sleep,” she said. “We have a long way to go tomorrow.”

Molly sighed. “You’re right.” As he pulled his pack over to use as a pillow, he told Nott and Caleb, “Wake me for a watch, one of you."

Nott looked at Caleb. “I can take first watch,” she offered.

He shook his head. “I’m not going to sleep any time soon,” he told her. “You get some rest.”

“Okay.” She pulled up her pack and curled up under Yasha’s flannel. Within seconds, she had drifted off.

 

Caleb woke her for the second watch. She climbed up into the window and sat there, looking out over the trees. Caleb curled up with his back to her, so she was never quite sure whether he actually went to sleep or not.

 

The sun was about a hand-width above the horizon when Nott heard movement behind her and glanced back. Mollymauk was sitting up, yawning. He paused and squinted at Nott. “Did you take the last two watches?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep.” A lie. She’d wanted to let Molly and Yasha get their rest. They probably had a long way to go if they were going to catch up to their group.

Molly didn’t seem to believe her. “All right,” he said, unzipping his backpack. “Well, the least we can do is share our breakfast with you guys.”

He pulled out a small camping stove, and dug through Yasha’s pack until he came up with a small pot. Then he put the pot on the stove and set about boiling some water.

The clattering hadn’t made Caleb stir, but apparently the bubbling water did. He opened his eyes and sat up, and a second later, his eyes seemed to clear. He covered his mouth to stifle a yawn, squinting at the stove. “Have you been carrying that around this entire time?” he asked.

“Yeah,” he said, taking out a can of oats and pouring some into the pot. “What, have you guys been living on rations this whole time?”

Nott and Caleb glanced at each other. Molly noticed the look and snorted.

A few minutes later, the oatmeal was ready and Molly nudged Yasha awake. They only had two bowls, so Caleb and Nott ate out of cups. The four of them sat in a circle around the camp stove and ate the bland oatmeal in comfortable silence. Though Caleb wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, it was the best meal he’d had in a long, long time.

Once they’d finished eating, they packed up and made ready to leave. The sun had risen over the treetops, and the dew was evaporating off the grass and turning the air muggy. Molly sighed and wiped sweat off his forehead. "Looks like it's not quite cooling off yet, huh?"

Nott nodded, but she kept her hood up and pulled her mask up to cover her face.

Molly looked back into the station. Yasha was still packing up her things, and Caleb was keeping a lookout down the other side of the hill through a window. Molly looked down at Nott. “Hey,” he said, swinging his pack off his back. “ _I..."_ He paused, searching through his bag. "Have got something for you. If I can just find it...” He frowned and set the pack on the ground, digging through the pockets. After a minute, he abruptly brightened. “Ah! Here we go.” He withdrew his hand and held out a small disc of red glass, about the size of Nott’s palm, with a small hole in one end. It looked like it had once been a pendant of some type. “I found this a while back,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s valuable, but it looks nice. You can have it if you like it.”

Nott looked between him and the pendant. Her eyes were wide. She pulled her down her mask. “Really?”

“Really.” He held it out a little farther. “Go on, take it. I have plenty more.”

She took it reverently and cupped it in her hands. A smile was creeping across her face. “You’re sure?”

Molly grinned. “I think you want it more than I do.” He got to his feet and shouldered his pack again. “I did like it a lot, though, so don’t go losing it. All right?”

Nott nodded, clutching the gift in both hands. “Thanks, Molly.”

Behind them, Yasha appeared in the doorway with Caleb behind her. Both of them stepped outside, squinting in the sunlight.

“Well?" Molly asked. "Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” Yasha gave Caleb and Nott a nod and a small smile. “It was nice meeting you.”

“It was nice meeting you, too,” Nott told her.

And with that, they parted ways and walked away from each other down the hill—Molly and Yasha heading South, and Nott and Caleb headed West.

Halfway to the bottom of the hill, Nott paused and looked back. But Molly and Yasha were already out of sight. She couldn’t even hear them anymore.

“Nott?” said Caleb from a few steps in front of her. “We should keep moving.”

“Yeah.” She shifted the straps of her backpack, turned back around, and trotted down the hill after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna take two weeks between now and the start of Fall. See you then! (Sometime between now and then I'll post that Caleb Bad Ending fic)


	14. Fall, Part 1

“Jackson County,” Nott read off of the sign on the edge of the bluff. “That means we’re close to Jackson City, right?”

“Yeah.” Caleb glanced around uneasily. He’d been even jumpier than usual these past few days, though he hadn’t seen fit to explain why.

“Are you nervous about meeting Beau again?” Nott asked.

Caleb sighed and clutched the straps of his backpack. “I’m just ready to get there.”

The hills had rolled upwards into mountains after they split from Mollymauk and Yasha, and they’d been trekking through a valley for the past week. They hadn’t seen any more people, though they’d had several run-ins with Infected. The weather got cooler the farther they walked, and the deciduous trees had given way to mostly evergreens. The climate was cold and wet, and they’d been following a river for the past day or two. Nott had picked up another hoodie along the way, and Caleb had begun wearing a long-sleeved shirt under his jacket. He found himself occasionally wishing he had a hood like Nott’s.

“Look at all that snow,” Nott remarked. She had her head craned back so she could stared up at the peaks of the Teton Range towering over them, and not really paying attention to where she was going.

“Nott,” said Caleb. “The road.”

She stopped and looked down. Several paces in front of her, the road they’d been following had collapsed into the river. “Oh,” she said. “Well, we should get closer to the water anyway, right?”

Caleb nodded and started to lift Frumpkin off his shoulders. “If we follow it uphill, it should lead us straight to Beauregard.” Frumpkin meowed in protest, and he told him, "Look, if I slip and fall, I do not want you to be on my shoulders. You can walk for a while." Frumpkin just meowed pitifully again, and continued to do so as they all negotiated a path down towards the water.

"So,” said Nott after a minute, “What happened between you and Beauregard?”

“What makes you think something happened?”

“I stay close to the people I know,” Nott said. “But you were all the way in Boston, and she’s here. Something must have happened for you to end up this far away from each other.”

Caleb climbed over a particularly slippery boulder while he thought of a reply. “Nothing happened, really,” he told her at last. “I met her a few years ago, and we traveled together for a while. Then she found somewhere she wanted to stay, and I moved on. It’s as simple as that.”

“She stayed with the Fireflies?” Nott asked.

Caleb took a deep breath that almost turned into another sigh. “She was already sort of out with the Fireflies by the time I met her,” he mumbled. “This was separate.”

They climbed the rest of the way down to the riverbank without speaking. The river wasn’t deafening by any standards, though it did make it difficult to hear each other. “Were you two involved?” Nott asked, raising her voice to be heard over the din of the rushing water. “Romantically?”

Caleb snorted. “I wasn’t exactly her type. Though I think she may have liked Yasha, had the two of them met.”

They walked in silence for another few minutes, until they reached a spot where the river was spilling over a metal wall. There was a staircase on the right, leading to a raised catwalk that crossed over the river. Behind the wall was a small complex of buildings continuing up the river.

“What _is_ that?” Nott asked as they approached the wall.

“A hydroelectric dam,” Caleb answered. “It makes electricity. Or, it used to.”

Nott climbed halfway up the stairs and peered down at the river roaring by. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb replied. “We hadn’t gone over that yet in school.”

Beyond the wall was a sort of man-made pond that Nott couldn’t cross—Caleb ended up getting in the water and pushing her and Frumpkin across on a wooden pallet. Frumpkin climbed onto Nott's back to keep out of the water, and Nott stuck her fingers between the slats and held on so hard her knuckles turned white. “Are you all right?” Caleb asked her.

“I don’t like water,” she reminded him between clenched teeth.

But they reached the other side without issue. Nott climbed off, and then took Caleb’s pack so he could heave himself up out of the water. “Teamwork,” she said, holding up a hand. Caleb wearily smiled and high-fived her.

They had to sit for a second while Caleb caught his breath. “I should warn you,” he told Nott, trying to squeeze some water out of his hair while they waited. “There may need… to be some words between Beau and I before we get any help from her.”

Nott looked at him. “Why?”

“The last time we spoke, we weren’t exactly… friendly.”

“So you _did_ have a fight.”

“We did, but it wasn’t what caused us to part ways. It actually happened because she wanted to stay there, and I wanted to keep going.” He sighed and rested his hands in his lap. “That was really all the argument boiled down to. Then she called me cowardly, I called her selfish, and we parted ways on… not on the best of terms.”

“How bad was it?”

“I believe her last words to me were _Yeah, just fucking run away again, it’s all you’re fucking good at._ ”

Nott raised her eyebrows. “Wow,” she said.

He rubbed his arm. “I don’t remember what I said to her that day,” he said. “But I imagine it wasn’t any better.”

"…Do you think she’ll help us?”

"I suppose we’re going to find out.”

Though Frumpkin had managed to stay dry, Caleb and Nott were both still soaking wet. But they didn't seem to be drying off very quickly, so as soon as Caleb had recovered, they set out again. This time, they made their way past the rest of the dam before they they rounded a bend and reached a concrete wall with a metal gate blocking the path. A sign nailed to it read, _FEDRA INCIDENT SECURITY FORCE._ There was barbed wire across the top of the fencing, and empty guard towers flanking the gate.

“Are we going in there?” Nott asked dubiously.

"It looks like the only way through,” Caleb replied, stepping up and scanning their surroundings. The fence cut off the path completely. “Maybe the locks will have rusted.” He gripped a handle and pulled, rattling the gate, but it didn’t open. Nott stepped up to help, but as she grabbed the handle below Caleb’s hands, the chilling sound of guns cocking drew her attention up to a guard tower. Two men were leaning out of the windows, training rifles on her and Caleb. More guns cocked on the other side; another man and a woman were poking their heads out of the tower on the other side.

Caleb put a hand to his pistol and Nott pulled her crossbow off her back, but one of the men barked, “Don’t even think about it. Drop your weapon, girl.”

Nott lowered her crossbow and put a hand out in front of Caleb just as he did the same to her. They glanced at each other.

“Please tell me you’re lost,” the man told them.

Nott spoke up. “We didn’t know there were people here,” she said. “We—we’re just trying to get through.”

The man narrowed his eyes. “Through to where?” he demanded, and as he did, a woman interrupted on the other side of the gate, “Hang on, they’re fine.”

“You know them?” the man asked.

“I know one of them,” the woman replied. The gate creaked, and one side swung open a couple of feet so the woman could step through. She was stocky, with blue eyes and an undercut tied up in a knot at the back of her head. She had a long metal pipe strapped to her back like a staff.

Caleb took half a step back. “Beauregard,” he said. His tone was difficult to parse, but Nott thought she heard a little relief and a lot of wariness.

Beauregard stared at him for a minute before a disbelieving grin broke over her face. “Holy shit,” she said stepping out from the gate and gripping his shoulder. “Caleb. Holy fucking shit."

Caleb nodded, smiling back in a nervous sort of way that made it seem like he was only smiling because Beau was smiling and he didn’t know what else to do. Thankfully, she immediately turned away from him. “Who're you?”

“I’m Nott,” said Nott.

“Beau,” was the reply. “What brings you two through here?” She eyed Caleb. “Again?”

Caleb put a hand to his arm, over the bite mark under his sleeve. “It’s… a long story,” he said, glancing up at the men still watching from the guard towers.

“Well, then let’s get inside.” Beau turned and headed through the gate. Caleb followed her, with Nott bringing up the rear. Beau waited inside and shut the door as Caleb and Nott took in their surroundings. They were in a courtyard of packed-down dirt ringed by a concrete wall, topped with barbed wire. There were guard towers spaced all around, and men patrolled the walls.

“False alarm,” Beau called to the guards. “They’re friendlies.” To Nott and Caleb she explained, “We’ve been dealing with a lot of raids. Lots of bandits around here. But it’s been quiet for a few days.”

Caleb eyed her. “Did you all actually get this thing to work?”

Beau nodded, waving to someone up on the wall. “Yeah. Up until this morning. One of the turbines broke down, and we’ve got guys working on it right now. But we’ve got _electricity,_ Caleb.”

Caleb looked around. The place still seemed cold and dingy, same as everywhere else. “I don’t know if it’s that big of a deal,” he murmured.

“Really?” She glanced over her shoulder, smirking. “When was the last time you had a hot bath?”

There was a pause. “All right,” he acknowledged. “Maybe it is a big deal.”

Nott, who was trotting up ahead of them, abruptly exclaimed, “ _Horses!_ ” She’d spotted two of the animals near another gate. One was standing patiently while a man nailed a horseshoe onto its back leg, and a woman stood nearby, holding the reins.

“Can I touch him?” Nott asked the woman holding the horse’s reins.

“Sure,” the woman replied, smiling. “He likes when you pet his ears. Have you ever ridden before?”

"Yeah,” Nott told her. She rubbed her hand down the horse’s neck, since she couldn’t quite reach his ears.

“You’ve ridden a horse before?” Caleb wanted to know.

“I used to get lessons back when I was at school,” Nott replied, running her hands over the horse’s side.

“School?” he repeated. “Were you in the military school?”

She hesitated. “Yeah." She didn’t look at him.

Caleb recognized the look of a sore subject and dropped it. Instead, he reached over and patted the horse’s back. The horse flicked his tail.

“We should keep going,” Beau told them. “This better be one hell of a story, for you to have come all the way back here from wherever you came from.” She led them into a low, flat brick building. As they were stepping through the door, a man’s voice crackled out of the radio at Beau’s hip. “Beau,” he said. “You there?”

Beau took out the radio and propped her other hand on her hip. “Yeah?”

“We’re about to start up the turbine again. Do you wanna come check it out?”

Beau glanced at Nott and Caleb. “I’d better go watch this,” she said. “You guys can wait here, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I want to see the turbines,” Nott piped up.

Caleb paused. “Well,” he said, “is there anywhere we could get some dry clothes? Maybe some food?”

“Sure,” Beau said. Heading over to the door, she poked her head outside and shouted, “Hey! Minerva!”

“Yeah?” came a woman’s reply.

“Can you come take these two to the mess while I check the turbines?”

“Actually,” Caleb broke in, and Beau straightened and looked at him again. “Maybe Nott could go ahead of me. I’d like to talk to you, Beau.”

Nott side-eyed Caleb. “I’d prefer to stay with you,” she said slowly.

"You’re perfectly safe here,” he said. “Right?” he added to Beau.

“Yeah. I’ve got a lot of good people here, and Minerva’s one of the best.” She gestured to the door as it opened, and the woman who’d been outside with the horses stepped into the room.

Nott glanced at Minerva and then leaned closer to Caleb. “I’m not worried about me,” she muttered.

Caleb gave half a smile. “Beau’s very tough,” he said. “I made it almost as far with her as I did with you. And I've got Frumpkin, too." He picked up the cat off the ground and let him climb onto his shoulder again.

Beau clapped a hand down on Caleb’s shoulder, making him jump. “Yeah, we can handle Caleb for a while. You go get some food and stuff. We can join you after we’re done talking.”

Nott threw one last uncertain glance at Caleb, but she finally left with Minerva. Caleb resisted the urge to chicken out and run after them. He’d spent far too much time with Nott, and being separated from her now made him uneasy. The realization of this was not a pleasant one.

“All right,” said Beau, “We’ll check out the turbines, and then we’ll find someplace to talk.”

Beau talked sporadically as they walked. When she noticed Caleb eying the patrols along the walls, she told him, “The adults take turns on watch. We’ve even got an electrified fence, when the power’s on. Not much good against bandits, but it keeps the Infected away.”

Across a catwalk, they entered a concrete room where two men in yellow hard hats stood at a table over some schematics. They looked up as Beau and Caleb entered. “We’ve got it this time,” one of them said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Let’s find out before we make any promises,” Beau replied, striding past them. To Caleb, she explained, “These are the braniacs who are getting this place running.”

“Hopefully,” one of them added, following her and Caleb out into another, larger room, where several men were helping position a piece of the turbine as a crane lowered it down onto the rest of the machinery. As they watched, the men secured the piece and turned towards back to the room Caleb and Beau had come from. “Beau’s here,” one of them called. “Fire it up!”

A moment later, the machinery whirred to life and the lights flickered on. Beau grinned and applauded. “Not bad, guys,” she said. Then she told Caleb, “All right. Now that that’s done, let’s go talk.”

She led him into another, smaller room containing a metal table and folding chairs. It looked like it had been a break room, at some point. Beau sighed and leaned her staff against the table. “Lots of good people here,” she remarked. “This place gives a lot of us second chances.” She shot a furtive look at Caleb, which he pretended not to notice as he set Frumpkin down on the floor. “So,” she said, turning to face him and crossing her arms. “What have you got?”

“Before that,” Caleb told her haltingly, “I’m just going to… ah, I’m going to… stand… here.” He moved next to the door, across the table from Beau. 

“…Why?” Beau asked, her eyes narrowed.

Caleb took a deep breath. “This is why I’m here,” he said, and then pulled his sleeve up to show her the infected bite mark.

To his complete and utter surprise, Beau didn’t move. Her expression didn’t change. She simply looked down at the bite. And for a long moment, she didn’t speak.

“Okay,” she said at last. Her voice was tense. “That’s a bite.” She paused. “That’s… an infected bite.” She looked up at Caleb, and the look in her eyes was more severe than anything he’d seen in…well, a long time. “You’re infected, and you came to this settlement full of people knowing that.”

Caleb nodded and glanced over his shoulder, making sure he knew where the doorknob was in case he needed to make a quick exit.

But Beau still hadn’t moved for her weapon. “How old is it?” she asked.

“…A couple of months.”

“Bullshit,” she shot back immediately.

“It’s true,” he said. “I’m…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I’m immune, Beauregard.”

She was still eyeing him like she didn’t quite believe him. He stepped forward, holding out his arm. “ _Look_ at it. The wound is healed. It’s a _scar._ Everybody turns within day, and I was bitten _months ago._ And I can breathe the spores, you can ask Nott. She’s seen me do it.”

There was another long pause. “Fuck,” Beau said at last. “Well, that would’ve been nice to know before. How did you get bitten?”

Caleb pulled his sleeve down. “I was alone outside a quarantine zone, and I ran into a Clicker.”

“Fuck,” Beau said again. She pulled out a seat and sat down. “Fuck,” she repeated. Then she looked up at Caleb, frowning. “Why would that bring you all the way out here, though?”

 “I’m trying to get to the Fireflies,” he told her, pulling out a chair across the table. “Nott was supposed to hand me off to some of them, but… it didn’t exactly go that way. And it was about time for me to get moving again, anyway.”

“And why did you come _here?_ ”

“I was looking for you,” he said. “I was thinking, these are your people—”

“I’m not a Firefly anymore,” she interjected.

“But you _know_ them,” Caleb insisted, sitting forward. “You would be able to help me find them.”

Beau frowned. “I can tell you where they are, but I’m not coming with you.”

“Beauregard, I _need_ this, just one favor—”

“I’m not trekking halfway across the country because you dropped by thinking I owe you a _favor,_ ” Beau snapped. “You’ve got Nott with you, and you’ve already made it this far! What do you even need me for?”

“Nott has a lot of close calls,” he told her, clenching his fists. “She almost drowned, Beau, more than once. She very nearly got ripped to shreds by Infected—”

“And you didn’t? Are you trying to tell me that the whole way here, _she_ was the only one who ever got into trouble?”

Caleb huffed. “That’s not my point,” he told her. “She’s—Nott is very capable, but at some point we’re going to run into something we can’t escape from and—”

“And you’d rather it was me there than her?” Beau cut in.

Caleb shut his mouth. His hands were clenched in fists. But he didn’t speak—he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Eventually, Beau sighed. “Look,” she told him, sitting back in her chair. “It sounds like you’re doing exactly what you always do. You’re running away.”

Caleb tapped his fingers on the table. “Running away is what has kept me alive all this time, Beauregard. Don’t undersell it.”

She gave him a withering look.

He sat back with a sigh. “What do you want me to say?” he asked tiredly. “Look, you were right, Beauregard, I’m a coward. I know that. You know that. Everyone who has ever _met_ me knows that. But it works for me, and I’m not changing any time soon.”

Beau didn’t reply right away. She just searched his face. But as she opened her mouth to speak again, an alarm began to wail somewhere in the compound. They both looked up, and Caleb half rose out of his chair. “What is that for?”

“We’re under attack.” Beau was already on her feet.

The radio on her hip crackled. “Beau, we’ve got a problem! They’ve already gotten inside! There’s a lot of them!”

“Nott,” Caleb said aloud. “Beau, I have to get to—”

“Come on!” she told him. “You’ve got a gun or something, right?”

“I wouldn’t have gotten this far if I didn’t.”

“Well, I fucking hope you can use it! Let’s go!” She grabbed her staff and rushed out the door, and Caleb followed on her heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fall is only looking like it’s going to be about five or six chapters long. Summer was SO LONG YOU GUYS
> 
>            


	15. Fall, Part 2

Beau and Caleb darted back into the turbine room. “I’ll go low, you go high,” Beau told him, heading for the stairs. Caleb didn't have time to respond before she was out of sight. He looked around for Frumpkin, but his cat was nowhere in sight. Damn it. He just hoped he'd stay out of the way.

Keeping as close to the wall as possible, Caleb headed towards a catwalk that crossed over the lower floor. People were already exchanging gunfire on the lower floor. Down below, he heard Beau ask someone, “What have we got?”

“Bandits!” a guy replied. There was a gunshot, and somebody on the other side of the room swore. “I don’t know how they got in!”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. A lot.”

Clanking footsteps drew Caleb’s attention, and he spotted a man climbing the stairs and aiming for Beau. Caleb took careful aim and shot him just as the man fired. Beau shouted, “ _Whoa!_ ” and the other man with her grunted.

“Are you okay?” Caleb called down.

“Yeah, we’re all good,” Beau called back. “We gotta get out of here before we can get to Nott!”

Caleb poked his head around a support column and confirmed that there was nobody else on this level. Then he ran for the door, scanning the room. A man on the ground took aim for him, but before he could get the shot off, Beau raced up and cracked the guy in the head with her staff. He crumpled, and Beau was up the stairs with Caleb before the guy hit the ground.

“This way,” Beau told Caleb, leading him towards a doorway. She pulled the radio off her hip and asked, “Minerva, are you still with Nott?”

“Yeah,” came the reply. “Neither of us are hurt, but we’re trapped in the offices.”

“All right, we’ll come to you.”

“We’ll stay put, then, I— _shit!_ Nott, get down!” And then there was a loud noise that came through the radio as static, and the other end went silent.

“Fuck,” Beau muttered.

As they exited the building, a man across the catwalk lifted his shotgun and started firing. Beau dodged to the side, and Caleb ducked back into the building. “Beau, get clear!” he called, tucking his gun into his waistband and pulling a Molotov out of his pack. He lit the rag, let it burn for a second, and then stuck his head out long enough to throw it towards the intruder. Then he ducked back around the wall and stared straight across the turbine room, trying not to listen to the bandit screaming on the other side of the wall.

“Caleb!” Beau appeared in the doorway and grabbed his shoulder. “Come on!” She took off without checking to make sure he was behind her, but Caleb did his best to follow closely.

“I should have... asked this earlier,” he gasped, struggling to keep up with Beau’s pace, “But how will I know who I’m supposed to be shooting?”

“If someone's shooting at you, you should probably be shooting at them!"

They fought their way across the compound—Caleb used two more Molotovs, and on the second one, he didn’t look away in time to keep from seeing the victim frantically trying to put himself out. Caleb faltered, but he managed to keep running after Beau.

As Beau led him down a set of stairs and into a building, he spotted a man crouching behind a crate that caught his attention. He wasn’t wearing a hard hat or a vest, but he was hiding next to someone who was. He looked familiar, but Caleb didn’t have time to figure out where he’d seen him before because he heard the heavy sound of Nott’s crossbow firing from inside the building, and then any thought of the familiar face was pushed from his mind.

Beau reached the doorway and then immediately jumped to the side as a bullet pinged off the doorframe. “Shit,” she muttered.

“Are there any other ways into the room?”

“No.”

“Caleb?” Nott called from inside. “Is that you?”

Beau caught Caleb’s attention and put a finger to her lips in a clear signal not to reply. He exhaled, irritated. She was right. Responding would give away where exactly they were.

“Caleb?” Nott called again, a little weaker this time, a little less sure. A little more scared.

Caleb gritted his teeth and leaned into the doorframe, ready to aim his pistol at whoever he saw. He caught sight of a man aiming a gun straight at him and just had time to think, _Oh,_ _Scheiße,_ before he heard the gunshot and something shoved his shooting arm backwards.

“ _Caleb!_ ” Nott screamed.

He went with the momentum, spinning around to put his back to the bricks to the side of the door. His arm didn’t hurt yet, but when he glanced down, he saw red spreading over the outside edge of his forearm. Not a terrible wound. And then he heard a gurgling noise from inside the building, and he registered that, immediately after the gunshot, he’d heard Nott’s crossbow fire again.

“Nott?” he called, putting pressure on his injury with his free hand. Somehow, he’d managed to keep a grip on the gun. "Are you all right?"

There was no response, save for the sound of a door slamming open and running footsteps. Beau poked her head into the doorway just as Nott reached the door and shoved past her, skidding to a halt and spinning to face Caleb. Immediately, her shoulders relaxed. “Caleb,” she said in relief.

“It’s good to see you, too,” he told her, lowering his gun. "Are you injured?"

"No I'm fine."

Beau poked her head into the room. “Wow,” she remarked. “You got all the rest. Minerva?”

“Here,” came the weak reply from the other side of a shattered window across the room. A hand gripped the sill of the window, and Minerva carefully pulled herself to her feet.

“You hurt?” Beau asked, crossing the room to put a hand on her shoulder. She was checking the other woman over for injuries.

“No,” was the response. “Just… a little shaken.”

“I kept her safe,” Nott said proudly. Beau shot her a quick look of gratitude.

Caleb nodded, distracted. He’d barely heard Nott. He was watching the man he’d spotted earlier talk to one of the men in hard hats. After a second, the man noticed him staring and started to turn to look at him more closely. Caleb turned away, thinking over the face in his mind. No, there was no way.

Nott stepped closer to him. “Are you all right?” she asked.

He swallowed hard. “Yes.” There was no reason for people from his old compound to be here. Or if they were, it was just a coincidence. It would just be the individual. Nobody else. Just the one. Just the one wasn’t a problem.

Cautiously, Caleb glanced over his shoulder again. The man with the familiar face had vanished. He tried not to be too nervous about it.

Beau, apparently done making sure Minerva was all right, approached them. “That was nice work, Nott,” she said. “You’re a pretty good shot.”

Nott grinned. Then she seemed to remember Caleb’s gunshot wound. “Hang on. Caleb, you got hit, right? Where?”

“Just my arm.” He took his hand off the wound. His palm and fingers were red and tacky.

Beau winced. “That doesn’t look great.”

“It's not as bad as it looks,” he replied. “Do you have somewhere I could clean up?”

As Nott helped Caleb to clean and bandage the injury inside one of the buildings—it really wasn’t as bad as it looked, it was just a graze—Beau leaned against the doorway and kept a tense lookout for any stragglers. Every few minutes, she called down to someone for a report and got the reply that they hadn't found anybody else. By the time the bandage was on, she’d started to relax again.

Caleb got to his feet, wincing. “Thank you for waiting,” he told her. “But, don’t you have other things to do?”

Beau turned and studied him for a second. He didn’t meet her eyes. After a minute, Beau sighed. “Walk with me,” she told them. “I’ve got to check and see if anything’s damaged.”

As they made their way through the compound to check in, Caleb hung back and let Nott walk up next to Beau. It didn’t take long for Nott to notice the tension in the silence between Beau and Caleb. At some point Frumpkin came trotting up to them and meowed insistently at Caleb until he picked him up with his good hand. "I wish I could just disappear like you do when people start shooting," Caleb muttered to him.

Nott reached up to scratch Frumpkin under the chin. “So, what did you guys talk about earlier?”

Beau shot another quick look back at Caleb, but he only looked back in that way he did when he was upset but refusing to admit it, with his head tilted down and his expression closed off. She sighed. “Caleb wants me to come with you guys for the rest of the trip,” she said. Caleb didn’t react to the lie.

“But you can’t?” Nott trotted up to walk next to Beau. "Why not?"

Beau shook her head. “I’ve got things to do here,” she said. “But.” She glanced at Caleb again. Still no response. She faced the front again. “I had an idea during the attack—it’s… possible that Trent or some of his guys might be able help you out. You should try talking to him.”

Caleb’s steps faltered. “Trent?” he repeated. The word came out a little strangled, and he quickly cleared his throat, because no. The chances were slim to none. There was definitely more than one person named Trent left in the world. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be here.

“Yeah,” said Beau. “We’ve been trading with this guy who operates from a settlement a little further out West. Trent Ikithon. He’s got a lot of good stuff; his settlement is huge, and he just came in this morning with more supplies. You guys have pretty good timing. They won’t have left yet, I don’t think, especially not with the bandits attacking. You might be able to go with them.”

“What kind of things do you get from him?” Nott asked.

“Mostly food and some textiles. We trade him horses and spare parts. I wish there was some way we could trade electricity. We’d be rich. Or, y’know, as rich as anyone can be right now…”

As Beau and Nott continued across the compound, they were oblivious to the fact that Caleb was no longer following behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have the next chapter up next week. I've got most of the rest of this already written out, so I'll try to stick to a once-a-week schedule for a while. You'll hopefully have some warning if I'm not going to be able to post for any given week.


	16. Fall, Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a day early cuz tomorrow's gonna be hectic

About a minute after Beau said Trent Ikithon’s name out loud, her radio crackled, interrupting Nott in the middle of a sentence. “Beau?” someone asked on the other side. “You there?”

She pulled the radio off her hip. “Gimme a sec, Nott.” She hit the button. “Yeah?”

“That friend of yours just grabbed a horse and ran off into the woods.”

Beau and Nott both whirled around. Caleb was not behind them. “Shit,” Beau said as Nott continued to stare in shock at the empty space where she’d thought Caleb had been. “Louie, when did this happen?”

“Just now. We were trying to get the gates closed again and he pushed past us and just peeled out. Looked like the devil himself was chasing after him.”

“We’ve got to go find him!” Nott turned to Beau, already half panicked. “There—there might be bandits still around, or Infected, or—”

“I know, Nott. Come on, we can catch up to him.” She led Nott to where several horses were already saddled up and ready to go. Nott took a couple of tries to get into the saddle; by the time she was settled, Beau had already turned her horse towards the gate. “Open up!” she told the guards.

The doors scraped open, and Beau and Nott kneed their horses though. Outside, Beau scanned the ground and pointed. “I see fresh tracks. He went this way.”

Nott snapped her reins and set her horse off at a canter after Beau, adrenaline humming in her veins. She wasn’t used to riding this fast, and the saddle bounced under her. She clenched her teeth.

“Keep an eye out,” Beau told Nott over her shoulder. “There might still be some bandits around. They could get to him before we do.”

“Don’t—” Nott clenched her teeth again as her horse leaped over a fallen log, and when she hit the saddle again, she nearly bit her tongue off— “Don’t _say_ things like that!” she told Beau.

“I’m just being realistic,” Beau replied. Then— “Hey! This way!” She veered off between two bluffs. Nott eyed the cliff tops uneasily. This place was basically a kill box. But they made it though all right, and Nott didn’t see anybody watching them.

Finally, they rounded a bend and found a two-story ranch house nestled in a clearing. The barn around the back had collapsed, but the house itself seemed to still be structurally sound. Nott was just thinking to herself that it looked like the sort of place Caleb might hide when Beau said, “Look! I see more tracks!” She was pointing to the dirt road that led up to the ranch house.

“How do you know they’re not the bandits’?” Nott asked.

“I don’t,” she replied. “But I’m pretty good at this stuff. And that’s one of our horses tied up out front.”

That was all Nott needed. She rode up to the house and practically toppled out of her saddle in her rush to get down. She didn’t even wait for Beau to join her before she ran inside. “Caleb?” she called. “Caleb!”

There was no response. But she spotted muddy footprints on the stairs and followed them up into a hallway. All the doors were open except one—she opened it and cautiously poked her head in.

It had probably been a child’s bedroom, once; there was a twin bed in one corner with a green quilt, and a desk with a plastic lamp shaped like a rocket ship, and a wall covered in chalkboard paint and smudged writing. To her relief, Caleb was sitting with his back to the wall under the window, his elbows on his knees and his head drooping. Frumpkin sat upright next to him, his eyes on Nott on the doorway.

“Caleb?” Nott whispered, stepping into the room and pushing the door almost closed behind herself.

Caleb lifted his head a little at the sound of her voice, but he didn’t look at her. “I heard two horses,” he said quietly. “Who is with you?”

“Beau,” Nott said.

“Is there anyone else?”

“No,” she told him, puzzled. “Why would there be?”

He exhaled and reached for Frumpkin without looking. The cat stood and stepped closer, rubbing his head against Caleb's leg. Caleb absently ran his hand down Frumpkin's back. “I know that man,” he murmured at last. “Trent Ikithon.”

Footsteps in the hallway alerted Nott to the fact that Beau had joined them. Nott crossed the room to sit cross-legged next to Caleb. He was strangely pale and visibly shaking. She wanted to comfort him, but she wasn’t really sure what he needed comfort for. “How do you know him?” she asked.

Caleb took a deep breath and tried to speak, but his voice seemed to fail him. Frumpkin gave a low trill and climbed into his lap. Caleb kept petting him, but he hardly seemed to realize he was doing it. “My parents and I all survived the outbreak,” he said quietly. “We made it to… an outpost. Some people had set up a camp, with walls and weapons and supplies. We lived there for a while. There was one man there… who was always talking about how we needed to be stronger. More aggressive against the Infected.”

He paused. Nott said nothing, waiting for him to continue, and after a moment, he did. “He… got to some of us. He told me… that we could get stronger than the Infected. That we could root them out before they managed to get into the camp. That we could… protect everyone else.”

“We?” Nott repeated.

Caleb nodded and lifted his head to stare straight ahead at the opposite wall, as if he could see the memories projected there. “There were two others,” he said. “He taught us… all kinds of ways to fight. He… hurt us. A lot. To—to teach us to think through it. And he… he had us torture some of the Infected. To show us they could feel pain, that they could feel fear. Just like us. To make us less afraid of them. But after a while, instead of Infected, we… the ones we hurt… were just… people. Bandits, infiltrators who tried to steal supplies. People who tried to run away from the camp. We got information from them, if we needed it. And then we killed them.

“Caleb.” Beau hadn’t moved from the doorway. “You know that’s… deeply fucked up.”

“We _wanted_ to,” Caleb murmured. His face was nearly gray. He lifted one hand to rub the bridge of his nose. “A few months of this, of… torture—” His hand dropped— “Of… murdering… people, and then…” He trailed off. The room was silent for a moment.

Then Beau spoke. “Your parents were brought in.”

Caleb gave a small shake of his head and, bizarrely, he grinned. But there was something unsettling about it; it seemed more as if he was baring teeth out of fear. “One day, Trent told us all that our parents had been infected. I don’t know why we believed him. He said that they had found some way of… of hiding it. From the rest of the camp. And him and me and Astrid and Eodwulf, we—we snuck out of the camp. First when Eodwulf’s parents were patrolling, and we watched as he killed them and got rid of the remains. Then it was Astrid’s parents. And then, one day when my parents were on patrol, we left after them and I… killed them. Trent told me burn the bodies so that the people from the camp wouldn’t find them, and I did.”

Nott glanced at Beau. Her eyes were wide, and she looked as horrified as Nott felt.

Caleb’s voice was growing rough, but he kept talking. “And I was—I was so sure. I was _so_ sure.” He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut. “Until I wasn’t. And as I stood there watching the fire, seeing their—their faces, for the last time, I—I…broke, a bit.” He gave a nervous, unhinged sort of chuckle. “I can remember being imprisoned somewhere in the camp after that. I don’t know whether that was because of him, or because… I’d just murdered my own parents in cold blood. But one day I… I escaped, and I ran out into the wilderness. I’ve been… wandering from place to place ever since. I’d been in Boston for a few months when I was bitten. And then I met you, Nott.”

Finally, Caleb looked over at his friend. He didn’t seem particularly sad. He looked more sorry than anything else. Sorry for telling them the story, sorry that it was true. But he seemed to be done talking.

Nott looked at Beau. Her eyes were still on Caleb, and her eyebrows were drawn together and her gaze was intense. Nott’s voice was more of a crack in the silence than a true break. “We should head back,” she murmured.

“Hang on.” Beau straightened. Whether she realized it or not, she was blocking the doorway. “You can’t just drop that on me and then expect to keep moving right along. That's  _messed up,_ Caleb."

“Beauregard.” Caleb looked up at her tiredly. “I can’t count how many times you tried to get me to tell you why I’m so afraid of fire when we were traveling together.”

Beau’s gaze flicked downward. “I know,” she muttered.

“And you see why I can’t go back to the compound,” Caleb told her. “Not with him there.”

“Yeah, I can understand that.” Beau crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “So, now what? You’re just going to dump all of this information and leave?”

Caleb studied her in that annoying silent way of his.

“Could we take a horse?” Nott asked Beau after a second. Caleb looked down at her in surprise, but Nott kept addressing Beau: “One horse will be easier to take care of than two, and we should both fit.”

Beau eyed Caleb, waiting for him to tell Nott his plan to continue alone. She could see the conflict in his expression. He clearly didn’t want to leave without Nott, but he was also clearly scared. Scared to leave on his own, and scared that if she came with him, he’d lose her, too.

But after a pause, Caleb looked at Beau, and then at Nott, and then at Beau again. He cleared his throat. “Could we… take one of the horses?” he asked Beau, not quite meeting her eyes.

Beau sighed. “Fine,” she muttered. “We’ve got a couple of spares, anyway.”  
           

They mounted up and rode with Beau back towards the compound. Beau rode in front, then Caleb with Frumpkin on the saddle in front of him, and Nott bringing up the rear. None of them spoke for the ride back, and they stopped before they were truly in view of the watch towers.

“Where is the research center located?” Caleb asked Beau.

“University of Eastern Colorado,” she told him. “In the Natural Sciences building. Big place with lots of windows. You can’t miss it.”

Caleb nodded solemnly. “All right,” he said. “Nott, we can take my hose. You can leave yours with Beau.”

“Hang on,” Beau said as Nott slid out of her saddle. “Are you sure about this? We still might be able to figure something out.”

“No,” Nott told her, grabbing Caleb’s hand and letting him help her up onto the horse behind him. “We’ll be all right. We’ve gotten this far.”

Beau studied them for a moment, and then she sighed. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure you will. But be careful, all right, you guys? And you can always come back here if you need a place to stay.”

Caleb gave her a half smile. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

“All right.” Beau nodded gruffly and kneed her horse forward. But she hadn’t gotten far before Caleb called after her, “Beauregard.”

She stopped her horse and twisted in her saddle to look over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

He paused, searching for a way to word what he wanted to say. Finally, he looked down at his horse’s neck and told her, “I would recommend cutting your ties with Trent Ikithon as soon as you can. He’s a maniac, and he only breeds more.”

“Yeah, that was the plan.” She looked down at her saddle horn and scowled. “Good luck,” she added. “I get the feeling you’re going to need it.”

Caleb nodded and turned the horse towards the east without another word. As they headed away from Beay and the compound, Frumpkin hopped up onto Caleb shoulder, digging his claws into Caleb's jacket and staring back the way they'd come. Caleb exhaled and patted the cat's back. "I know," he murmured, quietly enough that he hoped Nott couldn't hear. "I miss her already, too."


	17. Fall, Part 4

“Really? They _licked_ the bones?” Nott leaned sideways to try and get a look at Caleb’s expression. But he was completely straight-faced, so he was either a very good liar or telling the truth.

“That’s right,” he told her. “Because if it’s a bone, the archaeologist’s tongue will stick to it.”

They’d been exchanging strange facts for the past couple of days, since there wasn't much else to do on the road. Nott’s facts mostly consisted of what weapons tended to jam and which foods could be eaten after what number of days, and Caleb’s were mostly things he’d learned in school. For the past few minutes, they’d been making their way along a wall in the town surrounding the university, searching for the gate that led inside.

“What if it’s not a bone?”

“Then it’s probably a rock.”

“Huh.” Nott squinted up ahead. “Is that the gate?”

The gate was tall and impressive, with a wrought-iron arch over it announcing the name of the school. It had probably looked better before half the letters rusted out of the frame, though. As they approached, they saw that one side of the gate had fallen off of its hinges, and they could ride in without setting foot on the ground. They both fell silent as they made their way between the buildings, taking in their surroundings. The college was like its own little town, though, like most towns, it was quiet.

“So,” said Nott, breaking the silence. “People would pay a lot of money and just… live here? And study?”

Caleb nodded, craning his neck to see around the cat sitting on his shoulder. “That’s what I heard. I mostly heard about college being a place to have parties and ‘find yourself,’ though. It depends on what you’re after.”

Nott looked around. “Find yourself, huh…”

They crossed under a raised walkway lined with windows and headed down a ramp that led to a fenced-in loading dock. Caleb slid out of the saddle and tried to pull on the gate, but it was rusted shut. “Nott, do you see anything to break it with?”

Nott climbed to the ground and told the horse, “Stay, Loo.”

“What sort of name is Loo, anyway?”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t ask Beau what his name was before we left,” Nott told him. She sounded pretty pleased with the horse’s name. “Stay with Loo, Caleb. I’ll find something to break it with.”

“All right.” Caleb moved closer to the horse as Nott started searching.

While he waited, Caleb scanned the buildings. He thought he saw movement behind one of the windows, but he couldn’t be sure. As he was squinting up at the building, Nott said from behind him, “Caleb, would you move Loo over to the side and come help me with this?”

“You’re really enjoying that name, aren’t you?” he asked as he turned around. Nott was standing next to a wheeled dumpster, and he immediately caught her idea. “Oh, that might work.” He moved Loo, and together, the two of them managed to push the dumpster to the ramp. Then gravity did the rest of the work; the dumpster rumbled down the ramp and busted the gate open with a _crash_ that no doubt attracted the attention of every other living and sort-of-living thing in the area. Caleb tried not to seem too nervous as he and Nott climbed back onto the horse and made their way farther towards the middle of the campus.

Nott spoke up after a few minutes. “What did you want to be when _you_ were a kid?”

“An adult.”

“But what did you want to _do?_ ” Nott pressed.

There was a pause as Caleb thought. “I don’t really remember,” he admitted. “A scientist, I think.”

“What kind of scientist?”

“Just… a scientist. I was pretty young.” He ducked as they rode under a lower archway. “What about you? Did you have any plans before all of this happened?” He gestured around, indicating the college, Loo, himself. “Not as many options these days, but…”

“I just wanted to be _out,_ ” Nott said.

Caleb looked back at her. Nott saw the question in his expression and looked down. For a long moment, it seemed like she was taking a page from his book and deciding not to clarify. And Caleb turned to face the front again, ready to accept this, just a beat before Nott spoke up again.

“Out of… the military,” she admitted. “I—I was in the military, after I graduated from the school. I was… I was an assistant.”

“…An assistant what?” Caleb asked, because it seemed like the thing to do. But Nott didn’t reply right away. When he glanced back again, her expression told him that the answer wasn’t pleasant. His voice softened. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “It’s your history, and you don’t have to share it.”

She exhaled. “No, it’s… I—I was… well, they moved me around a lot. At the school. And after I graduated. I learned a lot of things, but I didn’t learn them very well. I wasn’t—I couldn’t pay attention long enough to be a guard, and I wasn’t good at cooking, or sewing, or anything, so they—they put me with the torturer.”

Caleb winced internally, but outwardly, he kept his expression blank. Nott didn’t seem to be done speaking yet.

She took a shaky breath. “I—I didn’t torture anybody,” she added. “I was the assistant. I just—” She cut off. “I _hated_ it there. I hated everybody. I hated my C.O., and I hated my trainer, and I—I hated the other trainees…”

“There was nobody you liked?” Caleb asked. He’d known the military in that town was bad, but this was disheartening. If he was the best friend that Nott had ever had, then there was more wrong with the world than he’d thought.

“Not in the military,” she admitted, not looking at him. “There was… well, there was a guy who they brought in one day. A Firefly.”

Caleb grimaced. He knew how most militaries treated Fireflies, and he knew it wasn’t pretty. He could vividly imagine what happened to them in those places.

“He was—well, I was supposed to—to get information out of him,” she muttered. “But instead of hurting him, I talked to him, and I got to know him, and— we became friends, sort of. The military let us keep talking because he was telling me information. He was a chemist.” She smiled faintly at the memory. “He was one of the researchers with the Fireflies. He taught me what he knew about chemistry, and he…” She paused, and swallowed. “And when I asked, he told me where the main Firefly base was in the city.”

Caleb’s brow creased. “And you told the military?”

Nott shook her head. “I didn’t,” she said. Her voice was rough. “That’s just it. They—they asked me, and I said he didn’t know, that he only ever went to secondary hideouts and that he didn’t have any more information. And they decided he wasn’t useful anymore and told me to kill him, but I didn’t want to, so one night, I got _reeeal_ drunk—” She gave a small, nervous laugh— “And I created a distraction. I shot one of the officers in the butt, and he yelled a whole lot, then I—and then _we…_ ran off, in separate directions. I went to the Fireflies, but he never showed up. I don't know what happened to him.”

Caleb glanced back and down at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were on the ground to the side, instead. Caleb turned his attention to the road and let the silence take over.

Soon they reached another gate but this one seemed like it had been added on. It seemed like the Fireflies had barricaded themselves in. Or at least, someone had.

Caleb muttered, “My turn,” and slid out of the saddle. He gripped the gate and started to pull it aside, but immediately, Frumpkin hissed, and Loo whinnied and danced nervously. Nott had to grab the saddle horn to stay on. Then, something in the distance shrieked.

“Sounds like runners.” Nott climbed out of the saddle. “Stay here, I’ll go ahead and check it out.”

“Nott,” Caleb began, but she was already making her way across the courtyard. Caleb couldn’t do anything but hold the horse’s reins and wait.

 

As she ran, Nott dragged her crossbow off her back. She could already see the nearly-human shapes moving around in one of the buildings, and that made her uneasy. Why were there Infected this close to the lab? Were the Fireflies using them for defense, like Jester or Fjord did? Or…

No, there was no or. They probably just hadn’t done their spring cleaning in a while. It was fall. Who did spring cleaning in the fall? Everything was fine.

She climbed the stairs to the floor with the Infected. There weren’t many, and they were all gathered in a few rooms. She shot them down through a broken window and climbed through the collect her bolts from the bodies. In the process, she got a very good look at them and immediately wished she’d just left the bolts where they were. Now that the Infected weren’t moving around, she could tell that they were fairly recent. And more than one of them wore a Firefly uniform.

She stowed her bolts ran back downstairs. When Caleb spotted her heading towards him, he visibly relaxed. “What did you find?” he called.

“About six Infected,” she told him. “It’s fine. They’re dead now.”

Caleb’s expression darkened, but he didn’t comment. And he didn’t ask if any were Fireflies.

They climbed into the saddle and continued towards the science building. But the farther they went, the more they were sure that something was very wrong. They’d seen a few spray-painted symbols, but no actual living Fireflies. No guards. No people. Nothing.

The front gate was rusted shut, but they found a way in by climbing on a dumpster up into the second floor. The lab inside was a wreck. There was no sign of people. Nott headed through the door and started walking down the hall, poking her head into the doorways. Caleb followed her in grim silence.

It had been a nice building, once. There was a big courtyard, ringed with balconies and railings made of glass and metal. The tech inside the labs looked like it had been top-of-the line. But they searched the whole floor and found nothing. When they’d done a full circle, back to the room they’d climbed into, Nott stopped. “There’s nobody here, is there?”

“I don’t think so,” Caleb murmured.

Nott's fists clenched, and then unclenched. “We should try to figure out where they were,” she decided. “Maybe they—they moved, or something. We have to find _something._ ”

“Maybe on the next floor,” Caleb suggested. And just then, they heard a _clang_ from somewhere else in the building. Instantly they froze, listening. But there were no other telltale signs of Infected. They exchanged a look, and then, carefully, they climbed the stairs to the third floor.

There was nobody at the top of the stairs, and nobody on the balcony overlooking the courtyard. Nott headed for one of the doors and opened it just enough to poke her head in. Then she paused and, slowly, stepped back out. “I found the Fireflies,” she told Caleb bleakly. “Or, you know… what’s left of them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is that last chapter of Fall.


	18. Fall, Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a character getting seriously injured in this chapter

The room Nott had found was still set up with spotlights and equipment that bore only a thin layer of dust. They passed a few open cages and two plastic temporary walls—whatever they were called—with the doorways still rolled up and tied. “There aren’t any bodies,” Nott noted, a little hopefully.

“That’s not necessarily good,” Caleb added, stepping through another plastic doorway. Then he stopped, and he quietly swore.

Nott trotted over to see. “Oh,” she said.

There was nothing of note left in this room, aside from a single human skeleton in a chair. There was a pistol on the ground next to the remains, and a tape recorder on the desk. Caleb picked up the tape recorder, hesitated, and then clicked the playback button.

A man’s voice emerged from the speaker, hoarse and tired and hopeless: “If you’re looking for the Fireflies,” he said, “they all left.”

Nott pulled one of the binders off a cabinet and started flipping through the pages as they listened.

“I’m dead,” the man continued in the recording. “Or I will be soon. Got some time to reflect.” Caleb hit the fast-forward. “—Been years that felt like we were—” He hit fast-forward again. “—fucking thing was a giant waste of ti—” He hit fast forward a third time. The bite on his arm burned with a phantom pain. “—looking for the others, they all returned to Saint Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.”

Nott’s head snapped up.

The man added, “You’ll find them there. Still trying to save the world.” Then he chuckled. “Good luck with that.”

Caleb took his thumb off the Play button, a little bit too late. Nott’s face had fallen. She set the binder aside. “Saint Mary’s Hospital. Do you know where that is?”

“I know the city,” he replied.

“Is it far?”

“It’s not exactly close.” Caleb crossed his arms, thinking hard. “It’ll take us a long time.”

Nott rested her elbows on the counter beside him, frowning down at the street outside the windows. “Well, if we’re on horseback…” She trailed off. Then she leaned forward, squinting. She could see the beam from a flashlight in a window across the building. “Are those Fireflies?” she said, and then the beam whipped upwards, aiming towards her, and she gasped. “Get down!”

She grabbed Caleb and yanked him below the counter as a gunshot rang from the street and the window above them shattered.

“Who _are_ these people?” Nott muttered to herself, already pulling her crossbow off her back.

“I don’t think it matters,” Caleb replied. He took Frumpkin off his shoulder and put him on the ground, and then he took out his gun. “And I don’t think they’re going to care what we’re doing here, either.”

Nott nodded grimly. “Let’s get out of here.”

As they crept towards the stairs, they heard footsteps and voices. These people, whoever they were, had already made it into the building. There were two in the room just outside the plastic walls; Caleb threw a Molotov, but it missed, and Nott shot one. The other fired at her with a shotgun, but the bullet whizzed by her and Caleb shot him before he could fire again.

“Hey!” somebody shouted in the courtyard below. “Who’s up there?”

Nott and Caleb ducked to the back of the balcony, keeping low and close to the wall. Nott waved Caleb towards the doorway near the stairs. “Who’s out on the balcony?” the man called again. Nott glanced around again. There was still nobody outside, and they were almost to the doorway.

But as she reached the door near the stairs, there was a crackle of static from just on the other side. Both Nott and Caleb froze as a man’s voice came through a radio somewhere in the stairwell: “Hey, anybody up on the third floor?”

There was a shuffle of fabric and a faint _click._ “Yeah?” said the man on the other side of the doorway.

The man in the radio said, “Check the third-floor balcony. I think they’re up there.”

“Sure.” Another shuffle, and footsteps moving towards the door.

Nott turned to Caleb and gestured to him frantically. He just looked at her, confused. Nott gritted her teeth and made a stabbing motion, and then pointed to Caleb’s pocket. Catching her idea, Caleb handed over his knife. She flicked it open and waited.

The man emerged from the doorway and looked the wrong way first. Nott leaped on him, clapping a hand over his mouth and clinging to him like a monkey. The unexpected force and weight made him stumble back into the doorway, and Nott slit his throat before he could yell. He crumpled to the floor, pinning Nott’s arm and one of her legs.

“Are you all right?” Caleb whispered, slipping through the door.

“Fine,” she grunted. It took her a couple of tries to shove the dead man aside and get to her feet. “Thanks.” She held out the knife.

“Keep it. You’re better with it than I am.”

They made it down to the second floor by sneaking by two more men with flashlights and guns. But as they reached the next closest stairway, they found that it was being guarded. “Think they know we’re here?” Nott whispered.

“Maybe. I’m sure there are other stairways.”

They headed back out of the room and onto the balconies, keeping to the walls yet again to keep from being spotted by anyone in the courtyard. Caleb tried a door and found it locked; Nott tried the next one, but the knob broke off in her hand. Caleb moved around her to a third door, and as he reached for the doorknob, Frumpkin abruptly scrambled off of his shoulders.

Immediately the door slammed open, hitting Caleb hard enough to send him stumbling backwards as the man who’d kicked it burst through.

“Caleb!” Nott shouted. The attacker grabbed the front of Caleb’s shirt and slugged him. Caleb recovered and tried to push him off, but his grip was too strong and he was too heavy and he’d pinned Caleb against the railing. Then there was an abrupt _chunk_ from Nott’s crossbow, and the bolt sprouted from the guy’s throat and he slumped forward—and in that sickening instant, Caleb felt the metal railing give way.

The fall was short. Only one floor. Caleb hit the ground on his back, and immediately he registered a searing pain so intense that his vision went white for a second. He couldn’t make himself look down, but he gathered that something had run him through.

“Caleb!” Nott slid down a thick clump of wires and ran to his side. “Caleb! Shit!” Frumpkin arrived and batted at him with his paw, wailing in distress. But Caleb couldn’t do much more than try to keep breathing, even when he heard a slamming noise nearby. Nott whipped around, dragging her crossbow off her back to shoot the man who had just burst through the door across the courtyard. Then she turned back to Caleb. “Come on,” she told him, grabbing his arm. “We have to get out of here! Give me your hand!”

Caleb tried to speak, but he couldn’t seem to form any words. The pain was radiating from somewhere around his midsection. He could see something thin and dark out of a low corner of his vision, at an angle it really should not have been coming from.

Nott gripped Caleb’s arm and pulled upward. Caleb couldn’t make a lot of noise as she dragged him up off whatever had speared him, but a moment later he was on his feet. Barely. “Are you okay?” Nott asked, steadying him.

He looked back at where he’d fallen. There was a pile of rubble on the ground, and a piece of rebar sticking straight up out of the concrete. The bar and the rubble around it were both stained red. He tore his eyes away. “Let’s get to the horse,” he mumbled.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s…” Nott trailed off, nodding nervously and glancing around. “Are you okay to walk?” she asked him. Her arms were already soaked in blood up to her elbows.

“I’m fine,” he replied. His voice was shaking. Was he shaking? “I’m going to be fine…”

“Alright. Let’s go this way.” Nott trotted away from the rebar and the blood. Caleb lurched after her, all his focus on staying up and moving forward. He wondered if this was how the Infected felt, stumbling around all the time.

“Can you handle the window?” Nott asked suddenly. They’d arrived at a wall with a broken window that led into another room. He watched Nott climb nimbly through the opening. Then he gripped the edge, put one knee, up and leaned forward, trying to lift his other leg… but the movement sent a fresh wave of agony through him. He toppled forward and landed on his back on the other side. For a moment he just laid there, completely focused on trying to continue breathing through the pain. Nott swore and started trying to lift him again, but somewhere across the room, a door banged open and Caleb caught a glimpse of a man with a shotgun.

Nott hauled Caleb behind a counter and swore again.

“I see you,” growled the man by the door. The gun cocked, and footsteps moved slowly towards them.

“I’m going to flank him,” Nott whispered.

“Nott,” Caleb began weakly, but she was already gone. He grunted and pulled out his pistol. He couldn’t let this man spot Nott…

Caleb tried to lean out and shoot—but immediately a bullet took a chunk out of the counter near his ear, and he ducked back under cover. “Those were my _friends_ you killed,” the man snarled.

Then Nott fired her crossbow and the man snapped, “You little bitch!”

Caleb twisted around and fired, though he wasn’t sure whether he hit because Nott had already loosed another bolt and it was buried in the man’s chest, and he was falling. Then Nott was at Caleb’s side again, pulling him back up onto his feet. “Come on, we have to go,” she told him. “You’re going to be fine. We just have to get out of here. You’re going to be fine.”

Nott took the front, checking around corners with her crossbow ready. “It’s clear,” she told him, leading the way out of the room and down the hall. Caleb did his best to stumble after her, but his vision was nearly gray and everything was fading in and out of focus. His shirt felt warm and wet and he still couldn’t gather the courage to look at his injury.

They reached the lobby. “We’re almost there,” Nott told him. “You’re doing great…” But Caleb hardly heard her; his knees abruptly buckled and he tried to catch himself on an overturned vending machine. As Nott turned to face him, he caught sight of movement on the upper floor at her back. Frumpkin hissed.

“Behind you,” he croaked, trying to lift his gun. But he didn’t have the strength to hold himself up with one hand, and he lost his grip on the machine and collapsed. He didn’t see so much of what happened next; Nott was shouting at someone to stay back, and there was swearing and gunfire. There was a sickening _clunk,_ and Nott grunted and hit the floor somewhere close to Caleb. Then his pistol was yanked from his hand, and he heard one, two, three shots, and then a thud.

“Caleb?” Nott said from nearby. When he pried his eyes open, Nott was kneeling next to him, her eyes wide. There was blood running down the side of her face from a wound on her forehead. She’d stuck his pistol into the pocket of her hoodie. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought that that was dangerous, but it took too much effort to talk.

“Just a little bit farther,” Nott said, hovering over Caleb as he rolled onto his side. It took him a couple of tries. “Can you get up?”

Caleb grabbed the overturned vending machine and heaved himself to his feet. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “I’m going to be all right…” Frumpkin rubbed against his leg. "Yes, friend, I wish you could help, too..." The pain was fading. His hands and feet had grown cold. His heart was beating wildly. Wasn’t that counterproductive? Wouldn’t that make him bleed faster? He couldn’t seem to collect his thoughts. He was pretty sure he was going into some kind of shock. Best not to mention it to Nott…

There were two sets of doors between them and outside. One of those little airlock type things to keep cold air from getting into the building. “I’ll get the door,” Nott said.

“No hurry,” he mumbled. Nott opened the first door and held it, and he stumbled past her to the second set. He leaned against them, knowing he didn’t have the strength to push, but they opened more easily than he expected them to. He lost his balance again and fell and tumbled down the stairs for only a couple of seconds before he came to a stop on the bricks next to their horse… and the stranger holding its reins.

“What the hell?” the stranger muttered as Caleb’s mind flooded with distant panic. But before Caleb could do more than feebly lift his hands in defense, the man looked up the stairs and swore, pulling out his gun. Immediately a crossbow bolt sank into his neck. The horse danced nervously as he crumpled to the ground.

Nott appeared next to Caleb, slinging her crossbow onto her back again. “Get up,” she told him, dragging him upright. Her expression was tight with worry.

“Get the horse,” Caleb managed.

By the time Nott brought Loo over, Caleb had stumbled to his feet. He was vaguely aware of Frumpkin leaning against his leg, as if hoping he could help. Caleb somehow managed to heave himself into the saddle, and once Nott was up behind him and Frumpkin had leaped up in front, he snapped the reins and they galloped out of the University.

 

Sometime later—maybe a few minutes, maybe half an hour—snow had started drifting down from the heavy gray sky. The university was out of sight, and Nott glanced over her shoulder. “It looks like we’re safe,” she decided.

Caleb didn’t reply. His head was nodding low, and Nott realized with a jolt that he was starting to tilt sideways. Before she could right him, he slid out of the saddle and hit the ground.

“Caleb!” Nott dragged on the reins to stop the horse and climbed down. “Caleb, get up! Come on!” She dropped to her knees and shook his shoulders. Frumpkin pawed at Caleb and yowled again, but he wasn’t moving. His face was pale and his eyes were closed and he was completely limp. “Hey!” She shook him again, but there was no reply. Frumpkin headbutted his ear and trilled. Still nothing. “Come on, get up!” Nott's voice echoed off the buildings around her. “Caleb, just—just get back in the saddle! I’ll find us somewhere to hide! You’re gonna be okay, I promise, just—get up! Wake up! Caleb, come on! Caleb! _Caleb!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the beginning of Winter.


	19. Winter, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick general warning for any of you who don’t know The Last of Us:  
> Winter is super grim. There’s animal death and implications of cannibalism. Beware.  
> (Also, since I wrote most of this fic before episode 49, I'm going to have Nott stick to the story she already gave for now.)

Nott hated snow. She hated most water, but snow was the worst. It got in her shoes and clung to her clothes and then melted and got her all wet as soon as she got warm. She hated snow. She hated the cold. And she hated this. She hated being on her own again.

With her stomach against a cold stone and the stupid cold snow soaking through her clothes, she lifted her crossbow and took aim. There was a huge buck in the area below her hiding place on top of a bluff. She’d already shot a hare and tied it to Loo’s saddle, but it wasn’t going to last very long. A buck like that, though…

She took a deep breath and fired. The buck screamed, making her wince, and galloped off into the trees. It left behind a trail of blood. Nott leaped to her feet and threw Loo’s reins around a tree branch. “You’d just scare it,” she told the horse, and then climbed down the bluff and trotted off after the buck.

It wasn’t difficult to follow. Between the blood and the hoofprints, she tracked it down into the valley. Once or twice she found that it had stopped to rest, and she shot it and sent it running off again. The snow was sticking to her socks, but she didn’t want to risk stopping to brush it off. She climbed over a broken fence and slid down between two boulders. Tucked into the trees below her was a run-down old house. Parts of the roof and most of the walls had collapsed, but somehow the place was still standing. Probably held together by rust at this point.

As she trotted forward, Nott spotted the trail again. She followed it through the creepy old house and emerged to find another scattering of buildings—as well as the deer, collapsed on its side a few feet away.

She approached it cautiously, waiting to see if it moved again. The last thing she needed was to be gored by an injured deer. But it looked pretty dead, and when she nudged it with her shoe, it didn’t move. She lowered her crossbow and sighed.

And behind her, snow crunched under somebody’s foot.

She whipped around with her crossbow ready, but she didn’t see anybody. “Who’s there?” she demanded. “Come out.”

There was a short pause before a man stepped out from behind a tree. He looked older than Nott by a number of decades, at the least, with a beard and a mustache and hollow cheeks. He held out one hand placatingly as he said, “We just want to talk.” Behind him, another man stepped out from behind the tree. This one was a few years younger, clean-shaven and dressed in all dark colors. The older one had a rifle slung over one shoulder. The younger one didn’t have any visible weapons, but Nott had no doubt he had something on him.

“No sudden moves,” Nott told them warily. “What do you want?”

The men glanced at each other. The older one said, “Uh, name’s David, and this here’s my friend James. We’re from a larger group—women, children—we’re all very, very hungry.”

“So am I,” Nott told them.

David shifted his weight and threw another quick look at James. “Well, maybe we could, ah, trade you for some of that meat, there.” He gestured to the deer. His voice was comforting and his eyes were kind, but Nott hadn’t survived this long by judging people based on kind eyes. “What do you need?” the man continued. “Weapons, ammo, clothes—”

“Medicine!” Nott blurted. Then she quickly hardened her expression and tried to appear intimidating. “I want antibiotics.”

David slowly nodded. “We have antibiotics back at the camp. You’re welcome to follow us—"

“I’m not following you anywhere. He can go get it.” Nott gestured to James with her crossbow. “He comes back with the medicine, and the deer is yours.”

David nodded again and turned to James. “Two bottles of penicillin and a syringe,” he said. “Make it fast.”

But James just looked between him and Nott, his eyes wide. Nott shifted to aim the crossbow at him, just in case.

“Go on,” David told him.

James cast one more dubious look at Nott, and then took a few steps back before he finally turned and trotted away around the barn.

“I’ll take the rifle,” Nott told David.

David nodded amiably. “Of course.” He set it on the ground, and then backed up to allow Nott to stoop down and grab it. She didn’t like guns, but this would do a lot more damage a lot faster than her crossbow did. She hesitated for a moment before slinging the crossbow onto her back and taking aim at David with the rifle.

For a moment, the only sound was the wind blowing the snow around.

David sighed, still smiling tiredly. “He’s probably gonna be a while,” he told Nott. “You, ah, mind if we take shelter from the cold?”

That, Nott had no problems with. “Bring the deer,” she told David.

 

Inside a dilapidated building that didn’t have a door but at least had boarded-up windows, David got a fire going with surprising ease. “There,” he said, rubbing his hands together and holding them over the small flames. He looked up at Nott, who had settled on one knee across the fire and a few feet away—far out of reach of him or any warmth from the fire. “You really shouldn’t be out here all on your own,” he told her.

“I’m fine,” she replied.

He smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled. “I see,” he said. “What’s your name?”

Nott eyed him. “Why do you ask?”

David nodded again. “Look, I understand it’s not easy to… trust a couple of strangers.” He gave a thin laugh. “Whoever’s hurt, you clearly care about them.” When Nott didn’t respond, he added, “I’m sure they’re gonna be just fine.”

She didn’t reply. The rafters creaked above them, and a gust of wind carried a puff of snowflakes through the window.

And then a cry split through the silence outside, followed by a chilling clicking sound.

Nott and David both rose to their feet, scanning the windows as the noise grew louder. It didn’t seem to be coming from any one direction.

A high-pitched growl drew Nott’s attention and she turned to the doorway just as a Clicker in a blue coat raced inside and stopped. Nott and David remained still, holding their breath and staring at it as it turned its head back and forth, making that horrible wet rattling noise as it searched the room for them.

Nott made the mistake of trying to step back, and her foot hit the deer, and the dull sound of the impact was enough. The Clicker screeched and sprinted towards her—she shot it down before it could get within arm’s reach. It toppled over, writhing in pain, and David stepped up and shot it one more time in the head with a pistol. Its arms and legs flopped to the ground, and it went still.

“You had another gun?” Nott demanded.

“Sorry.” David peered out the window. There were more sounds of Infected carrying through the trees around them. “I’d really like my rifle back now,” he told Nott.

She hesitated, debating. There wasn’t much time. And she was better with the crossbow than the rifle… But she didn’t want this guy to have a weapon like this. “No,” she told him. “You’ve got your pistol.”

He set his jaw and pulled a tarp down off of a cabinet. “I hope you know how to use that thing,” he said, throwing the tarp over the deer.

“I’ve had some practice,” Nott told him, but he was already running to the other side of the room.

“Cover the windows,” David ordered. “We need to keep these things out.” He ran over and pushed the door shut.

Nott took aim at the windows, waiting. When she saw movement outside—a human shape sprinting towards them with its limbs flailing—she fired. The shape fell. She shot another one before it could get to the windows, and when she heard movement behind her, she turned and shot a runner in a window near the door.

“You weren’t kidding!” Bizarrely, David was smiling. “You’re a better shot with that thing than I am!”

She ignored him and killed a Clicker that was trying to break through a window in the far wall.

“Gimme a hand with this thing,” David told her. He was pushing on a cabinet against one wall. Nott lowered the rifle and braced her shoulder against the cabinet, pushing with all her weight. As they finally got it covering most of the windows, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye but couldn’t jump away in time—a Clicker smashed through the glass grabbed a handful of her hair. Before it could sink its teeth into her, though, David grabbed Nott’s shoulder and yanked her away, shoving his pistol past her to shoot the Clicker point-black in the face. Nott’s ears rang as she stumbled into the middle of the room, but at least she wasn’t fungus food.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” she told David, trotting backwards. There was a door in the back wall that they hadn’t bothered with; now she ran over and tried to push it open. But it was rusted shut. She gritted her teeth and slammed her shoulder into it. The metal gave a little.

“I got it,” David said, pulling her aside once again. He kicked the door in and ran through. Nott followed him up some stairs and together they shoved a bookshelf in front of the doorway.

“Follow me,” David said, opening another set of doors. “Through here.”

The doors led to a turbine room. But this wasn’t like the one at Beau’s place; this turbine was run-down and rusted, covered in snow that had drifted through the broken roof. Patches of yellowed grass poked through the snow near the walls.

“How are you doing?” David asked her, heading towards a set of metal stairs.

“Don’t worry about me,” Nott replied.

Behind them, a crash and some screams told them that the Infected had gotten through their barrier.

Nott and David broke into a run again, up the stairs onto the catwalk and then through a hallway connecting two buildings. Through a broken window, Nott could see the building they’d left the deer in down below. She sprinted through the doorway on the other end of the hall and nearly ran straight into David, who had stopped just a few feet inside.

“What are you _doing?_ ” she demanded, shoving the door closed and stepping around him, but she stopped when she saw the sorrowful look on his face. She followed his gaze to two dead men lying on the floor.

“Ah, Lord,” David murmured. “I’ve been looking for these boys.” He exhaled and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s keep moving.”

They moved into the next room and scanned the walls, looking for another exit, but there wasn’t one. The windows were too high up to climb through, and there weren’t any doors.

“It’s a dead end,” David told Nott, as if she hadn’t noticed. “How did they _use_ this building?”

A runner screeched behind them. Nott whirled around and lifted the rifle as the Infected came spilling through the doorway. She shot one after the other, but there were too many. She paused to reload, and before she could raise the rifle again, one of them tackled her to the ground. Her head hit the concrete and her icy panic washed through her veins, but she whipped out Caleb’s switchblade and slashed it across the Runner’s neck. Blood sprayed against her arm. She shoved the dead Infected off and raised the rifle just in time to shoot another one before it could reach her.

“We’re doing fine!” David called over. “Just stay focused! We’re gonna make it!”

Nott gritted her teeth and didn’t bother to reply.

She lost track of how many bullets she fired. The Infected just kept coming. She’d never fought this many at once before, not with so few people, but she just focused on killing them, one after another, ignoring the bodies littering the ground.

She reloaded again and raised the rifle, looking around for her next target. She caught sight of David peering out a window.

“What?” she asked him.

“I think we did it,” he said. Relief was evident in his voice and he might have even been smiling.

Nott scanned the room. Sure enough, none of the Infected were moving. She edged over to the window and glanced outside. There was no movement there, either. Just a couple dead Infected facedown in the snow.

The sight of all those corpses lying around made her nauseous. She focused on David instead. He was moving towards the stairs. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go check on that buck of ours.”

She kept her ears open as they headed back towards the house, but she didn’t hear anything aside from the wind and the occasional tree creaking in the distance. No more Infected. She allowed herself to relax, just a little.

 

Back in the first room, Nott pulled the tarp off the buck and found it undisturbed. “Looks like the deer is all right,” she noted.

“Good, I’m glad.” David was stirring up the fire again. It had been reduced to embers while they were gone, but within a couple of seconds the flames began jumping up between the wood again. “Seems like we make a pretty good team,” David said.

“We were lucky,” Nott replied. She crouched by the fire and held her hands out over it, trying to warm them up again. She’d lost the feeling in her fingers while they were battling the Infected.

“Lucky?” David repeated. “No, no… no such thing as luck.” He poked the fire with stick, and then paused and gestured with it as he spoke. “You see, I believe… everything happens for a reason.

Nott scowled at him.

“I do, and I can prove it to you,” David insisted. “Now, this winter has been… especially cruel.” His brow creased, and he poked the fire again. “A few weeks back, I, ah… sent a group of men out—to a nearby town to look for food. Only a few came back.” He fixed his eyes on the fire. “Said that the others were, ah… slaughtered. By a couple of crazy people.” His expression tightened, and something about his voice was starting to make Nott’s skin crawl, though she wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. Then David added, “And get this—there was a man who got hurt real bad, and a real short person with a mask…” He looked up at her. “And a crossbow.”

Nott stared at him.

“You see?” David said quietly. “Everything happens for a reason.”

Finally, Nott unfroze and scrambled to her feet, pulling the rifle off her back and aiming it David. But he didn’t look up from poking the fire. “Now, don’t get upset,” he said. Nott trotted backwards anyway, headed for the door. David sighed. “James, lower the gun.”

Nott whirled around with the rifle to find James standing in the doorway, aiming a pistol at her. He was breathing through gritted teeth, sneering at Nott. “No way, David,” he said, his voice trembling with fury. “I’m not gonna let her go!”

"Lower the gun,” David repeated.

Nott glanced between the two of them, waiting in tense silence to see who would move first.

Then, slowly, James let the gun drop.

David sighed. “Now give her the medicine.”

James pulled a small bag out of his pocket and tossed it on the ground at Nott’s feet. “The others won’t be happy about this,” he said.

“Yeah, well, that’s not your concern.” David was watching Nott, but he didn’t move or say anything else as Nott quickly snatched the medicine up off the ground and stuffed it in her jacket pocket. Then she edged past James, still pointing the rifle at him. James stepped around her, to stand next to David.

“You can’t survive long out there,” David told her gently. “I _can_ protect you.”

Nott shook her head and backed out the door without speaking. She continued trotting backwards until the walls obscured the two men. And then she turned and ran.


	20. Winter, Part 2

Loo was waiting right where she’d left him. He lifted his head and pricked up his ears when he heard her approaching. She ran up and yanked the reins off the tree and climbed up into the saddle as quickly as she could. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, snapping the reins.

About a mile away, in what used to be a large mountain town, she steered Loo into a house’s garage and got off to pull the door shut. Loo was covered in snow; she paused to brush him off, pretending she wasn’t just procrastinating. Loo turned his head and whuffled at her hair.

She sighed. “Okay,” she whispered.

Nott headed to the basement and trotted down the stairs. The place had been stripped pretty bare by the time she arrived, and one of the windows was covered by only a piece of burlap she’d nailed over it in a feeble attempt to at least keep out the snow, even if there was nothing to be done about the cold.

As she reached the bottom, she found Frumpkin sitting next to Caleb, just as she'd left him, though he was half twisted around to watch her. Caleb was on his back on a mattress in the middle of the floor, covered up to his chin by a patched quilt she’d found in another building. “Caleb?” Nott repeated as she reached the bottom of the stairs. He was awfully still. Was he breathing? Oh, god, _was he not breathing?_

She stood there at the bottom of the steps, frozen in fear. No. No, no, no, he couldn’t be…

But then she saw his chest rise and fall, ever-so-slightly. His breath fogged over his face. Nott sighed in relief and trotted over, rubbing Frumpkin's head as she dropped to her knees beside him.

“I only managed to get a little bit of food,” she told Caleb, though she knew he wasn’t going to respond. “But—” She took out a bottle of medicine and the syringe. “I did get this. Move your arm…” She pulled the comforter down and lifted his hand out of the way, exposing the wound. She’d sewn it closed as best she could, but with no way to clean it or stave off infection, it wasn’t looking good. The edges were swollen and painfully red.

Caleb hadn’t truly woken up again since that day at the University. Sometimes his eyes would be open and he’d be lucid enough to drink some water or eat something, but he never recognized Nott. He kept asking where Astrid and Eodwulf were, or his parents. Sometimes he mumbled about faces and fire, and sometimes he whispered apologies in his sleep. Nott did her best to comfort him, but it never seemed to help much.

“Okay,” Nott said to herself as she skimmed over the instructions on the bottle, and then filled the syringe and tried to steady her hands. “Okay.” She took a deep breath and injected the antibiotics near the wound, wincing as Caleb clenched his jaw and made a small noise of pain. Frumpkin growled in response. “Sorry,” Nott whispered, and finished emptying the syringe. “All right. All right, all done. It’s over.” She pulled the comforter back up over him and waited a moment, watching him for any changes. He didn’t miraculously wake up. And he didn’t look any better immediately.

Nott tried not to be too disappointed. Of course he wasn’t waking up right away. He needed time. She glanced at Frumpkin, and though she normally couldn't read cats, she thought that he seemed disappointed, too. Frumpkin slunk over to curl up on the mattress next to Caleb's head, and then he began to purr.

“He's going to be okay," Nott told Frumpkin. The cat opened his eyes and looked at her. Nott looked down. She’d lost count of how many times she’d told him that over the past couple of weeks. She'd lost count of how many times she'd said Caleb was going to be okay. She wondered if he’d heard her at all.

For a moment, she just sat and studied him. He still looked the same. Like he was sleeping, maybe having a nightmare, definitely in pain. And there was nothing Nott could do about it. She hated that more than the snow, more than the cold, more than being on her own again. She hated that there was nothing for her to do but wait.

She pulled up her backpack and fished around in it until she found what she was looking for: her flask, and a bottle of alcohol she’d taken from the bar back in town with Jester and Fjord. That felt so long ago. She popped the cork out of the bottle and took a big swig. It burned on the way down, and she winced.

It had been a while since she’d had alcohol. She’d been so focused on keeping herself and Caleb alive she’d hardly had the time or the thought to drink. Now she remembered why she started drinking in the first place—it took the edge off the fear. The fear of being caught, the fear of being killed, the fear that what she was doing wasn’t enough and Caleb wasn’t ever going to open his eyes again.

She took another, bigger swig, and then refilled her flask. Then she corked the bottle again and stuffed it into her bag. With that done, she laid down on her side with her backpack under her head like a pillow. The alcohol warmed her stomach and slowed her mind, allowing her to settle down.

Nott studied Caleb’s face for a moment, holding perfectly still until she could make out the rise and fall of his chest again. He was still breathing. He was still alive. And if anything else happened, she’d just have to deal with it.

Carefully, she reached out and rested a hand on top of the covers in hopes that it might bring him at least a little comfort. Maybe somewhere in there, he would be able to tell she was still with him. Then she closed her eyes, exhausted, and drifted off to sleep.

 

What roused her later that afternoon was the faint sound of voices outside. She sat up and listened, and when she heard them again, she climbed up onto the washer and peered through the basement window.

There were several figures walking down the street near her hiding spot. One of them told the others, “Spread out and search. They’re around here somewhere.”

“Shit.” Nott climbed down off the table and picked up her pack. Frumpkin lifted his head and pricked up his ears. “I’m gonna get rid of these guys,” Nott told him and Caleb. “I’ll be back soon." To Frumpkin she added, "Stay with Caleb.”

She climbed the stairs, taking care to skip the step that creaked. At the top, she carefully, quietly shut the door to the basement. Best to try to keep as much warmth in the room as possible. She took Loo from the garage and climbed on. To draw these people's attention, she was going to have to be very visible and _very_ fast. Leaning low over Loo's neck, she steered the horse around the back of the houses away from their hideout. She wanted to be as far away from Caleb as possible before they spotted her.

Two of the men were walking towards a house with their backs to her, talking: “Are we even sure she’s here?” one asked, and James, replied, louder: “Man, there were horse tracks down the fuckin’ street. She’s here.”

A pair of hands grabbed her arm and her ankle and started trying to drag her off the horse. “ _Hey!_ ” Her captor shouted. “She’s over here! I got her!”

Nott wrestled Caleb’s knife out of her pocket and jammed it into his throat. He was so close to her that she saw his gray eyes widen in surprise before she yanked the knife out and kicked him away.

“What are you waiting for? _Shoot her!_ ” James shouted. Nott looked up and caught a glance of James standing next to a man with a rifle as the second one protested, “But—

David said—”

"Fuck David! Shoot her _now!_ ”

Nott snapped the reins and took off down the street. One of the men tried to grab onto her, but hanging onto a rider on a galloping horse isn’t easy; Nott brought her knee up and kicked him off.

“Aim for the horse!” Someone shouted. “Don’t let her through!”

There were a lot more of them than she’d thought, all rushing towards her. Bullets whizzed over her head. She wove around the men as best she could—some were even smart enough to dive out of the way. Nott’s heart beat in her throat. She’d never run into anybody outside the military who had the luxury of trying to get revenge. Didn’t these guys have _anything_ better to do?

“Shoot the horse!” Somebody yelled. “ _Shoot the fucking horse!_ ”

Nott gritted her teeth and wished she’d left Loo back with Beau. He’d been safer there. The horse’s lungs were heaving and Nott’s were, too.

The town was huge. She did her best to keep to the road, jumping over fallen logs and the occasional fence. She had to be at least half a mile from the safehouse by now, but they were still shooting at her and—

Loo screamed and stumbled, toppling over sideways and tumbling down a bluff. The momentum threw Nott from the saddle. She landed on a boulder and rolled and then fell a few feet and then rolled a few more before she finally came to a stop.

Her entire body ached. Gingerly, she pushed herself up off the ground. She could already feel bruises forming all over her body. Her head was pounding. When she looked up, she saw Loo lying motionless a few feet away, crumpled in the snow.

“Oh, no,” Nott wheezed. “Oh, no, Loo—”

“Got it!” someone shouted up on the bluff. “She fell over here!”

“I’m sorry,” Nott told Loo, and then she started making her way on foot down the hill. She climbed through an abandoned house, hoping to muddle her tracks. This part of town was more like a resort; the houses were all idyllic log cabins, all with scenic views of a river that flowed past them down the mountain.

Someone outside in the street spoke up, and Nott froze, listening. “Are we really killing her?” the man asked. “David said he wanted her alive.”

Damn it, these guys were everywhere! Nott climbed through another window and skirted around the voices as someone replied, “David doesn’t get to make that call. James told me it’s the girl from the university. How many of our guys were killed there?”

“Oh shit,” the other guy said, quieter. “I didn’t know that was her.”

Nott crept around the back and sidled along a broken dock over the river. The water below her was choppy and gray. If she fell in, she’d probably freeze before she could drown, and she’d probably be shot before she could freeze. She tried not to think about it.

The farther she went, the quieter it got. The voices began to fade into the distance. By the time Nott arrived at the lodge towards he edge of town, they’d ceased altogether. She paused for a second, listening. She heard nothing but the wind in the trees. She’d lost them.

“Time to head back,” she murmured, trotting towards the lodge. The wind was picking up, and the clouds overhead were darker than they had been when she first left. There was a storm coming. The snowfall would cover her tracks, and she’d pack up and… oh. She’d forgotten she didn’t have Loo anymore. She’d used him to drag Caleb here on a litter. Whatever. She’d drag him herself.

She hadn’t seen much of the town, but from what she could tell, it had been a nice place, once. And this lodge looked like the best of it—three floors, fancy windows, the works. She’d wanted to explore it, maybe after Caleb woke up. Whoever had lived there had to have left some nice things behind.

“Cover the grounds!” someone shouted, and Nott immediately dropped behind a car. “Make sure she’s not hiding somewhere around here!”

Nott snuck around them, ducking from car to wall to car again, and she was almost to the lodge when she found her way blocked by a man standing with his back to her. She crouched there for a minute, debating. The sound of her crossbow might draw attention. But then again, so would the man, if he managed to make any noise at all.

She pulled her crossbow off her back, took careful aim, and fired. The man crumpled with barely a sound. Nott tried not to look down at him as she moved past.

The place was absolutely crawling with men holding guns. Seriously, how was it that they didn’t have enough people to hunt for food, but they had enough people to hunt for _her?_

She shot another searcher when he spotted her, and a third because he was blocking her way. The more she took down, the colder she felt. It didn’t help that the snow was blowing harder as well.

Halfway around the back, the lodge was built into the cliffside and there was no way around. She snuck into the interior and climbed up to the second floor, and then the third, and onto the roof. She could see all the men down below her, still searching the parking lot for her. None of them thought to look up. Good.

She backed up along the roof, and then took a running start and jumped across onto the cliff behind the lodge. Then she paused to brush some snow off of herself, and she began to make her way back towards Caleb.

Although she didn’t hear any more voices, Nott kept as silent as possible. It seemed like she’d lost them, but she’d thought she’d lost them when she got to the lodge, too. She didn’t want to take any chances. So, she kept her crossbow out and loaded as she made her way back up the mountain, and not once did she relax until she’d reached the house again. There were footprints in the street behind it, but the garage door was still closed and it didn’t look like anything had been disturbed.

She made her way through the empty garage, brushing snow off her coat as she headed for the basement again. A sense of accomplishment settled over her. She’d protected Caleb this time. But the fact that they’d found her meant it was time to move, and she wasn’t sure whether Caleb was strong enough to make it. But there wasn’t any other choice. These people knew she was in this area. She’d just have to try to keep him warm and hope for the best.

Nott trotted down the stairs into the basement. “I’m back,” she said. And then she stopped on the stairs, because the quilt was thrown to one side and the room was empty. “Caleb?”

She took the last couple of steps to the floor, looking around. His pack was still on the ground. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Caleb?” she called, louder, as the worry set in. Then she noticed damp spots on the floor, and on the stairs leading to the basement door to the outside. She ran over. There were still half-melted bootprints on the concrete. She clambered up the stairs and shoved the door open—icy wind blasted into her, nearly knocking her down the stairs again.

Outside, the growing storm hadn’t quite covered up several sets of footprints, and dark drips of blood in the snow.


	21. Winter, Part 3

Caleb drifted in and out of consciousness; he was relatively warm for a while, and from time to time he heard Nott’s voice. Sometimes he thought he saw her hovering nearby, and he was glad to know she was okay. Then suddenly there was cold, and hands, and shouting and snow and pain. He tried to fight. His arms hurt. His head hurt. Mostly his stomach hurt, with a sharp burn that would have had tears in his eyes if he’d been conscious enough to react to it.

When he woke again, for real, he was on his back on a cold concrete floor. His breath steamed in front of him. The ceiling above him was unfamiliar. He tried to roll over, but as soon as he moved, he felt something like an invisible fishing hook rip through his stomach. He gritted his teeth, but still managed to roll over and push himself upright. When he put a hand to his middle, it came away with spots of red. A wound in his stomach was sewn shut, but the stitches were horribly pulled, and there was dried blood on the floor where he’d been lying.

Looking up, he found a fence to one side and walls all around, like the inside of a dog kennel.

Then he heard a dull _thunk,_ and he looked past the fencing.

There was a person in the room outside, standing at a table with his back to Caleb. As Caleb watched, the man used a meat cleaver to push something off the table and onto the floor. As the something hit the ground, Caleb realized it was a human hand. He shifted backwards in numb horror.

The faint rasp of fabric on concrete caught the man’s attention, and he turned around. He wrinkled his nose when he saw that Caleb was awake. Then he buried the cleaver in the table and walked out of the room without a word. Caleb remained where he was, waiting.

A few minutes passed, and the man still didn’t return. When it seemed safe, Caleb dragged himself to the fence and looked around as best he could. There were no other cages like his, and the room seemed to be empty save for him and the table and some shelves. Nott and Frumpkin were nowhere to be seen.

With his heart in his throat, he forced himself to look at the remains. But they were from a larger person—a larger person who had to have been dead for a couple of days. So, it was probably safe to assume Nott was still alive with Frumpkin. Somewhere. Half of him hoped she would keep away. But the other half wanted her to be coming to get him, and he hoped that if he could just get outside, she’d know how to get him out of this place.

Caleb curled his fingers through the fencing and hauled himself to his feet. When he found he could stand on his own, he started looking for a way out. First he pulled at the metal gate, but it was chained shut. He stuck his arm through the bars and felt around on the chain until he found the padlock. He checked his pockets and found that he didn’t have his knife, or his gun, or his lighter. In fact, he didn’t have anything.

Movement outside caught his attention, and he looked up. A man was walking towards him with a tray. He looked old and tired and hungry. Caleb pulled his arm through the gate again and backed away as the man approached.

“How are you feeling?” the man asked, crouching to push the tray under the fence. On it was a plate of rice with some kind of sauce with meat, and a mug of water. It was so cold in the room that Caleb couldn’t smell any of it. “Here,” the man told him, resting his elbows on his knees. “You should eat.”

Caleb didn’t move. “Who are you?” he asked.

“David,” the man replied. “What about you?”

“What do you want?”

David gave a quick chuckle. “For now, I’d like you to eat. I know you must be hungry.”

To be honest, Caleb wasn’t all that hungry. He _was_ thirsty, though, and it was doubtful that they’d put human flesh in the drink. He darted forward and grabbed the cup, quickly retreating out of reach in case David grabbed for him. But David just knelt and watched Caleb finish the water. It was ice-cold and it made his throat ache, but water was water.

As soon as Caleb was finished, he put the cup down and repeated, “What do you want?”

One corner of David’s mouth pulled to the side. “Right to the point, huh?” He sat down and sighed. “Well, truth is, you and your little friend have caused us a lot of trouble.”

“We were just trying to survive,” Caleb replied, though he wasn’t sure what Nott had done. Judging by how cold it was, he knew it had to have been weeks—maybe even months—since the university. He’d had a vague sense of time passing while he was unconscious, but no idea of how much.

David chuckled. “Well, so are we. And you two killed a lot of my men back at the University.”

“We didn’t have a choice.”

"And you think we have a choice?” David shook his head and sighed. “We kill to survive. We take care of our own.”

“Is that your plan?” Caleb asked. “You’re going to kill me to survive? You’ll cut me up like that poor bastard on the table?”

David gave a hoarse laugh. “No, I’d… rather not. Really, I want to talk to your friend. But my boys found you first and brought you back here. We figured she wouldn’t get far without you. Or—” He gave a half smile. “She wouldn’t _go_ far without you. Whatever the case, we’ll bring her in soon. Hopefully she can be brought around.”

Caleb eyed the butchered human remains still visible over David's shoulder. “I doubt it,” he said. But, this was some good news. They didn’t have Nott. They didn’t know where she was. Good.

“Well, anything’s possible.” David was still smiling. It was not comforting. “I’m sure we could help you, but it’d be easier to trust you if we knew your name.”

When Caleb didn’t respond, David sighed. “Look,” he said. “After we lost those guys a few weeks back, we could use more people. I know the girl did most of the killing, so I’m sure I could talk the others around into letting you join us.”

Caleb just watched him in grim silence.

“You’d be safe,” David pressed. “We have a compound here. Whole families. I’m sure you can join, and you’d be well taken care of, long as you pull your weight.” He smiled, inviting Caleb to smile back. "What do you say?”

But Caleb still gave no response. After a few moments, the silence seemed to get under David’s skin. “Come on,” he said. There was an edge to his voice now. “There’s no need to make things difficult.” He put his hand on the gate. “Please. I just want to help you.”

Caleb darted forward and grabbed David’s finger—quick, sudden, _snap—_ just like Trent had taught him—and then grabbed for the keys. But David yanked his arm back out of the cage, trying to break Caleb’s grip, and Caleb’s head crashed against the gate before he lost his hold and fell back.

“You— _stupid_ man!” David shouted at him. “Don’t you realize that I am the _only_ one on your side right now?”

“My name is Caleb Widogast,” Caleb growled. “And you are _not_ on my side.”

David bared his teeth in something between a grin and a snarl. “Well,” he said, “I guess you’re right.” He looked down at his injured hand. “What was it you said? ‘Just like that poor bastard’?” He locked eyes with Caleb through the fence and gave a chuckle, and then he started to shuffle away. “See you in a little while, Caleb Widogast.”

 

Before, Nott’s fear of being caught or losing Caleb had burned away anything else she might have been feeling. But now they’d killed Loo and they’d taken Caleb. She didn’t know where he was. She could be pretty sure that they’d hurt him. And she was _furious,_ and she was going to get him back, no matter what.

The anger ran cold in her blood as she circled back around outside. There were still men in the area, despite the snow falling; she shot one before he could spot her, and his buddy turned around “I got her!” he shouted, and then a crossbow bolt cut off anything else he might have said.

Nott ran over and collected her bolts as shouts rose from around her. She needed to figure out where they’d taken Caleb. She snuck past a couple more, keeping an eye out for any that were running around on their own. Maybe she could catch someone by surprise and get information out of him. She hadn’t done anything like that before, but she’d watched enough that she could probably do it.

She climbed over a fence and landed, and she heard running footsteps but she couldn’t move in time to keep a man from wrapping an arm around her neck and another around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides. “Gotcha!” he snarled, lifting her off the ground as she struggled to break free. “Finish her off!”

There was a man approaching from the front, holding a knife. “Hold her still!” he told Nott’s captor, and as soon as he got within arm’s reach, Nott kicked him in the crotch and he doubled over. Nott snapped her head back and felt her captor’s nose crunch. He dropped her. She hit the ground and scrambled to her feet as the first guy was trying to stumble upright again. She kicked him in the head, and he went limp. When she looked back, the guy with the broken nose was still on the ground, holding his face.

She stood there for a second, her chest heaving. Neither of them seemed to be getting up anytime soon. She brushed her hair back out of her face and gave a short, grim laugh. Well, all right. This would do.

           

It took some doing, but she managed to tie up the one with the broken nose inside one of the houses. “Tell me where he is,” she said, standing in front of him.

He gritted his teeth. “I don’t know what you’re—”

Nott reached forward and tweaked his nose. He howled in pain, and when she let him go, his eyes were watering. “The injured man who was in the basement,” she clarified. “You people took him. Where?”

“He’s—” The guy was blinking fast. “David’s got him, we—we knew you’d go after him. So we—"

“Congratulations,” Nott interrupted. “You were right.” She left the room and got Caleb’s map from his bag, and one of the pens he used for his books. She stuck the pen in between her captive’s teeth and held up the map. “Mark where he is on here,” she ordered.

Maybe it was because of the pain, or maybe the man was just intimidated by the sheer fury in Nott’s eyes, but he did it without question.

“Thanks.” Nott put the map in her pocket and shouldered her pack.

“Hey, hey, hey!” the guy protested as she walked away and put one foot through a window. “Are you going to let me go, or whatever?”

“No,” she told him, and then she slipped out the window and dropped to a crouch on the ground. There she paused, and she took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said quietly, checking the map. The sloppy X marked a town a few miles away, down in the valley. “Okay.” She got to her feet again and set out through the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's fucking siiiiick


	22. Winter, Part 4

David had been gone for close to an hour, and Caleb had remained pressed against the back wall the entire time. Every few minutes he forced himself to relax his shoulders and unclench his jaw. And also to breathe. Breathing was important.

Something scratched at the window above him, and he looked up. There was a shadow in the dirty glass. A distinctly cat-shaped shadow. "Frumpkin?" he whispered.

Footsteps alerted him to someone approaching, and Caleb turned to the doorway just a moment before David stepped through the door, with the man from earlier following behind him. David looked angry and grim, and the other man looked… almost excited. He smirked at Caleb as he took out a ring of keys.

The man unlocked the door and Caleb tensed, but before he could try to run or fight, they surged forward and grabbed hold of him. He thrashed against them, swearing, but he wasn’t strong enough to break their grip. They were dragging him out of the cage and towards the table.

Caleb yanked his arm up and managed to sink his teeth into David’s wrist. David swore and punched him across the face, and Caleb saw stars for second. Before he could shake his vision straight, there was a hand on his head and it slammed the side of his face down against the cold, damp wooden table. His knees didn’t quite reach the ground. The edge of the table dug into his wound. The hand was holding his head down and there were two more pinning his arms behind his back, and he couldn’t get free no matter how hard he struggled. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw David pick up the cleaver.

“I’m infected!” Caleb shouted in desperation. “ _I’m infected!_ ”

That got their attention. They stopped, and the unnamed man frowned. “What?”

“He’s just trying to save his skin,” David replied, lifting the cleaver, but Caleb spoke up again.

“I’m infected,” he repeated. The smell of old blood was burning in his nose. He tried not to think about it. “And... and so are you.”

There was a pause. He couldn’t see the two men, but he figured they were looking at each other.

“I’m telling the truth,” Caleb told them. The rough wood grain was pressing against his wound, and if not for Trent’s fucked-up training, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to talk through the pain. “Check my arm if you don’t believe me.”

David smirked. “All right,” he said. “I’ll play along.” He brought the cleaver down an inch from Caleb’s face with a _thunk_ that made him flinch. Caleb tried not to stare at it as David pushed up his sleeve.

There was a pause.

“It’s not real,” David said. “It can’t be real, he would have turned by now!”

“It looks pretty damn real to me!” the other man shouted. His hold had slackened on Caleb’s arms, and Caleb ripped out of his grip, grabbed the cleaver, and sank it into the unnamed man. He didn’t see where it hit, but he felt blood spurt across his hand and before David could do anything, Caleb pushed around the edge of the table stumbled towards the door. A gunshot rang behind him and a bullet ricocheted off the wall near his head. He glanced back and saw David aiming a pistol at him.

He couldn’t quite run, but he managed to half-trot, half-stumble down the hall, holding a hand to his injury. He managed to make it around a corner, where he paused and listened, trying not to breathe too loudly. He took his hand away from his middle. His fingers came away with blotches of red.

Grimly he zipped up his coat and pressed his arm against his stomach, hoping to stem the blood as well as he could.

Cold wind against his face drew his attention to an open window. He grabbed the sill and heaved himself through, barely managing to land on his feet outside. When he looked up, he couldn’t immediately see anything, and for a second he feared that the hit to the head had affected his eyesight. But no, it was all snow being blown around the by the wind.

He stumbled forward, shielding his eyes as best he could. The buildings all looked the same, but he spotted a door and headed for it. Another couple of gunshots echoed off the bricks around him. He didn’t look back to see where they were coming from—he focused on getting the door open and getting inside.

As he shut the door behind himself, he looked around. This was a storage room of some kind. There might be something useful in here. _A gun,_ he realized. _I need a gun._ Some way to fight back. He checked his pockets. They were all empty. Still. Of course.

Another bullet _pinged_ off the door at his back, and he turned around and checked for a lock. There wasn’t one. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, trotting backwards a couple of steps before he risked turning around to look for a way out.

“Where you goin’, Caleb?” David called from outside. “This is my town!”

There was a doorway in a corner on the other side of the room. Caleb poked his head though, confirmed the room was empty, and stepped inside. This room was bigger and was filled with smaller cages, lined with wire mesh. Maybe it had used to be a pet shop. "Frumpkin?" he whispered, but there was no response. Maybe he'd gone to find Nott.

An unfamiliar voice rose from outside, calling, “We heard gunshots!”

Caleb ducked behind a counter just before several figures moved past the front of the store. He looked for an escape route, but the back walls were solid and the windows out front would put him in David’s line of sight. So Caleb remained where he was, listening and waiting for an opportunity to escape.

“He’s infected,” David was saying to whoever was out front of the shop. “He killed James and got out. I need you to round up everyone who isn’t armed and get them to clear outta here. We’re gonna find him and we’re gonna kill him.”

Caleb hugged himself and realized that his teeth were beginning to chatter, not only from the cold. After a second he realized the noise might draw attention, and he clenched his jaw and started to duck through the room. If he headed in a straight line, he ought to be able to get out of here, right?

“I’ll check in here,” someone announced from the doorway. Caleb peered around a counter and saw a man walking through the store, sweeping his gaze over the counters. Caleb ducked back behind the counter before the man could spot him, and once he’d passed, he poked his head out again. The man was carrying a pistol. That might be useful…

But Caleb wasn’t armed. Could he even get close enough to touch this guy before the man put a bullet through his forehead?

As Caleb watched his target, looking for a way to catch him off-guard, he noticed there was a knife stuck through the man’s belt. It wasn’t secured, or anything. And he’d seen Nott do this a few times…

He took a deep breath and crept forward, praying that nobody stepped through the door and spotted him. When he was right behind the searcher, he held his breath and grabbed for the knife. It slid easily out of the man’s belt, and the man turned around and saw Caleb. Immediately shouted and started to lift his gun. But before he could fire, Caleb swung the knife. Blood spouted from the man’s neck, and he crumpled to the floor.

Shaking with adrenaline, Caleb pried the pistol out of the dead man’s fingers and rifled around in his pockets until he found his bullets. That done, he climbed out another window and back out into the storm.

He could hear a bell ringing now, like an alarm bell, or maybe it was just being blown around by the storm? He wasn’t sure. With the blizzard, the town was reduced to a maze of hazy white. He picked a direction and headed that way, though he had no idea where he was in relation to where he’d been before. Every few seconds he had to duck out of sight to avoid being spotted. David’s people were everywhere. Snow gathered on Caleb’s coat, in his hair, on his eyelashes. He paused to scrub his eyes clear and found that he couldn’t feel his nose. That was… not good.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Then a pair of arms came out of nowhere and suddenly there was an elbow around his neck and a hand on his arm and Caleb was heaved to his feet. “Got ya!” someone shouted in his ear. Caleb twisted to one side and stuck the barrel of his gun against his captor’s torso and fired. The man shouted, but didn’t let go. Caleb adjusted his aim and fired again, and this time the man released him. Caleb stumbled away and looked back. The man was on his back in the snow, holding his side and groaning.

Immediately Caleb became aware of shouts rising from around him. He swore again and ducked through a broken wall. His fingers were getting numb. He looked up and started scanning for open windows, open doors, some way to get out of the wind, at least.

There. Above a dumpster. A window was propped open, and there seemed to be light inside the building. He headed straight for it, climbed up, and hopped through.

Only as he hit the ground did it occur to him that there might be people inside. But thankfully, the room was empty. It looked like a kitchen area, lit by a lantern and some oil-drum campfires in one corner.

Caleb stopped there to rest for a second and catch his breath. The back of his throat tasted like blood. He put his hands over his mouth, blowing on them until he could get some feeling into his fingertips. He didn’t dare approach the fires. But he couldn’t stay in one place for too long… better to keep moving.

Once he could feel everything again—and the warmth was starting to make his fingers burn—he made his way through the kitchen into a seating area. The place had lots of dark wood and leather and mounted antlers. It had probably been a restaurant, at some point. The whole building was blissfully warm and well-lit, with kerosene lanterns all around. It was probably some sort of hub for the people who lived here.

He crept through, peering around the booths before he stepped out. The door was just up a small set of stairs. He crawled over and rose out of his half crouch to peer through the frosted glass windows. He couldn’t see anybody outside.

Caleb exhaled and stood up the rest of the way. Then he took one more deep breath and opened the door.

Suddenly David pushed into his vision, grabbing his gun and forcing it to the side. Caleb tried to bring his arm back up and shoot, but the bullet just went through the glass.

“ _My,_ you’re easy to track,” David growled, shoving Caleb backwards into the building as Caleb struggled to get free. But David slammed him back against a table and then swung him sideways, and Caleb lost is grip on the gun and hit the carpet. When he looked back up, David was aiming the pistol at him and demanding, “How did you do it?”

Light caught Caleb’s eye, and the familiar sound of fire. One of the kerosene lanterns had fallen over and the table near the door was in flames. David noticed him looking and turned to see for himself.

Caleb took the opportunity to scramble behind the set of booths in the middle of the room.

“That’s all right!” David called. “There’s nowhere to go!” His footsteps moved towards the booths, and Caleb crawled backwards, staying out of sight. He reached the corner of the booths, rounded it, and peered back towards the door. David was gone.

“You want out?” David asked from somewhere in the room. “You’re gonna have to come get these keys.”

Caleb eyed a window speculatively, thinking that might be a way out. But the panes were set in a grid of iron bars. Even if the glass didn’t cut him to ribbons, there was no way he could break those.

“I know you’re not infected, Caleb,” David said from too close. Caleb inhaled sharply and moved down the booths and around the corner. Somewhere in his head, he thought that this was like a fucked-up version of a game he’d played with some other kids at recess when he was younger. They’d chased each other in circles around the play structures, singing and calling to each other to hint at where they were. _All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel…_

Caleb had never been any good at that game.

The sound of the fire drew his attention; the door was in flames, and so was the area around it. The door wasn’t an option anymore. The keys didn’t matter; he just had to get out of here.

“I gotta admit,” David said. “You almost had me back there. For a second you shook my faith.” There was a smile in his voice. “But only for a second.”

Caleb kept moving, kept holding his breath, and realized that David’s voice was moving in a different direction; he was checking behind another set of booths. Close enough that Caleb might be able to get to him before he turned around.

He crept up, knife in hand…

And then David turned around.

 _POP! Goes the weasel,_ sang some demented child in the back of Caleb’s mind.

Caleb darted away as David aimed the gun and fired twice, sending chunks of wood and sawdust spraying up out of the floor. When he pulled the trigger again, nothing happened. The gun was empty.

“Nice try,” David said. He sounded like he was smiling again. And then there was a chilling sound of metal against metal, and when Caleb glanced out of his hiding spot, he saw that David had drawn a machete off of his back. “Come on, Caleb,” he said. “This has gone on long enough. Just come on out, and I’ll make it quick.”

Caleb ducked out of his hiding spot and ran back towards the door, staying just shy of the flames. He reached it and tried the knob, hoping desperately that David had just been bluffing about the key. But the doorknob wouldn’t turn. Caleb glanced back over his shoulder to see David stalking towards him. “You know, Caleb,” he said, “you keep surprising me. I wouldn’t’ve thought you’d get this far on your own. How’s that injury of yours holding up?”

Caleb put a hand to his middle. The pain had faded into the background while he was running around, but now that he'd been reminded…

He turned and tried to dart for the stairs, but David leaped in front of him and swung the machete. Caleb jumped backwards and ran away again and ducked behind the booths. _Damn_ it.

“Sorry, Caleb!” David called. “No taking off again! I’d like to settle this here and now.”

The entire front of the building was burning now, including the door. The wall, the rafters, and some of the booths along the windows, too. That had to be drawing some sort of attention. Soon, this place would be full of David’s men. He had to end this quick.

Grimly, Caleb shifted his grip on his knife. He held his breath, staying out of sight and listening to David taunting him. He crept around until he could see David’s back, and then, holding his breath, Caleb moved up behind him… and then leaped and stabbed.

The knife sank in below David’s collarbone. David screamed in pain and dropped the machete— but before Caleb could get off of him, he reached back and grabbed Caleb’s jacket and flung him away. Caleb hit one of the booths and David stumbled backwards into the flaming front wall of the building.

David lurched forward again as a feral snarl ripping across his face. “I’m gonna—”

Abruptly he cut off and looked down. His coat was on fire. He shouted and slapped at it, trying to put it out. Caleb glanced over and saw the machete on the ground nearby, the blade glowing orange with reflected light from the flames. He grabbed it and stumbled to his feet, and at that moment David leaped towards him, howling with fury. Caleb squeezed his eyes shut and swung, and he felt warmth against his arms and his face that wasn’t from the fire. The machete stuck there and David’s weight ripped it from Caleb’s hand. Caleb stumbled backwards a few steps before he managed to pry his eyes open again.

When he registered the sight in front of him, everything else faded. He took one more step back and then his knees buckled and he sat down hard on the floor, simply staring as the building burned around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the last part of Winter.


	23. Winter, Part 5

Even before Nott could see the compound, she could hear it. The bells were loud enough that she was willing to bet the entire valley could hear them—people, Infected, everything. She needed to get Caleb out of there before the whole place was swarming.

But by the time she got there, it alreadyswarming, in a way. Men with guns patrolled the streets, calling out to each other and checking the buildings. As she crept around the back alleys, she heard someone shout, “ _Damn it!_ He got Kent!”

“He’s infected?” Someone else shouted.

“No, he’s dead! The bastard got him with a knife! Took his gun, too!”

 _Caleb?_ Nott thought, hopeful. If he’d escaped on his own, all she had to do was find him and get out.

The good news was that the blizzard brought visibility down to about ten feet in any direction. The bad news was also that the blizzard brought visibility down to ten feet in any direction. The men couldn’t see her, but she couldn’t see them, either. She kept low, creeping around the buildings. Once, as she was about to round a corner, she nearly bumped into one of the men. The only thing that saved her was that he called over his shoulder for someone. She stopped cold and waited for him to pass before she continued on.

Partway across the compound, she tried a door and found that it was open. She slipped inside, shut the door, and then stood there for a second, rubbing her hands together to try and get some feeling back into them. At least now she was out of the wind.

She turned brushing snow off her shoulders, and halted. The room was full of shapes hanging from the ceiling, and for a second, she wasn’t sure what they were. Meat? Was this a warehouse? A butcher’s?  

But as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she finally processed that these things were all people, pale and emaciated, strung up by their feet with their arms tied together above their heads.

Her fear settled cold in her gut. Were the men looking for Caleb, or something else? What if they'd already caught him, and they were just doing cleanup?

Numbly, she took her flashlight out of her bag and swept the beam across the room, searching the faces. No, that one wasn’t Caleb. Not that one, either. Or that one. No. He wasn’t here. Caleb wasn’t here. She should have felt relieved. But standing in this room with all these corpses hanging from the ceiling, she couldn’t.

She wove around the bodies, heading towards the other doorway. “He’s alive,” she whispered to herself, keeping her eyes down so she wouldn’t see the people’s faces too closely and wonder who they’d been before. “They wouldn’t be hunting him if he wasn’t alive. I just have to find him. I just have to find him…”

As she reached the other side of the room, something moved in the low corner of her vision, and she looked down to find a very familiar tabby cat looking up at her. Her heart skipped a beat. "Frumpkin?" she said.

Frumpkin meowed and darted through the doorway.

"Wait!" Nott chased after him into what looked to be an empty storage room. She just barely caught sight of Frumpkin hopping through a window. "Frumpkin,  _wait!_ " she repeated, shoving the door open and bracing herself against the wind—and immediately she stopped again. A building down the road was completely engulfed in flames.

“Caleb,” she said aloud, and then took off running towards it.

 

The closer she got, the worse she realized the situation was. The fire had already melted most of the snow around the building, creating a slush of half-frozen mud. It sucked at her shoes as she made her way through it, squinting from the heat. The door was engulfed in flames—there was no way she could get through it. She looked around, but there wasn’t anything around that she might be able to break a window with. In her panic she took no notice of the fact that the street was completely empty. The men who had been searching were nowhere to be seen. She could only hope they'd decided to abandon their search. For some reason.

At last, she gave up and ran around the side of the building, skirting the flames as best she could as she searched for another entrance. Around the back, she spotted a dumpster and an open window. It was high up, but worth a try. She scrambled up onto the dumpster and climbed into the building. As she dropped to the floor inside, she noticed a door in the wall to her right. Great. It would have been nice to see that from the outside.

She straightened and scanned the room. The fire in the front room was visible from where she stood, and the heat turned this room, all concrete and metal, into an oven. She needed to find Caleb and get out of here—fast.

“Caleb!” she shouted. “ _Caleb!_ ”

There was no response. Nott headed towards the light from the flames, hoping he would come out of one of these side doors. Hoping that he was not in that room. “Caleb!” she shouted again. Her eyes were beginning to sting from the smoke.

She reached the doorway and found half of the front room—like a seating area for a restaurant—in flames. Still no Caleb. She forged through, pressing one hand over her mouth in hopes her mask would help filter some of the smoke. “Caleb!” she called again. Her voice was muffled. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she kept blinking her eyes open, struggling to see through the haze filling the room.

As she reached the small set of steps that led to another section of the restaurant, she spotted the dark shape of a person sitting upright on the floor near the door, not moving. “Caleb?” She climbed the steps and made her way towards the figure. But as she did, she spotted a burning body near the wall, curled up in a fetal position. A machete was buried in the corpse, handle-up, and the face was unrecognizable. The skin was blistering in some places and gone in others. Her heart lurched.

But then, as she approached the first figure, the one sitting on the floor, she saw that this one was Caleb. Not the burned one. Not the dead one. He sat leaning back on his hands, watching the body. Frumpkin sprinted past her out of nowhere and headbutted Caleb and meowed, but Caleb didn't seem to notice him.

Nott ran over and dropped to her knees next to him. “Come on, we have to go!”

He didn’t respond. His gaze remained locked on the charred corpse a few feet away. Nott looked at it, and then at him, and she finally understood what had happened. She grabbed his shoulders. “Caleb, come on! It’s me! It’s Nott!” She shook him, but he didn’t reply. He was still looking right through her.

“Caleb! Stop it! Just stop looking at it!” She tried to turn him away, but he kept his eyes on the remains. “You were just trying to escape, right? It’s _not your fault!_ Caleb, come on! It’s me! It’s Nott! Look at me! See, I’m right here!” She put her hands on either side of his face. “It’s me!”

Slowly, he tore his gaze from the body to her face. “Nott,” he managed. He looked back at the body, and then back at her. Panic crept into his expression. “I—I didn’t—I didn’t mean to—it wasn’t—”

She pulled him into a hug without letting him finish. He didn’t respond in any way, but he didn’t push her off, either. “I know,” she croaked. “It’s—It’s not your fault. You—it’s not your fault. It’s _not_ your fault.” She pulled back and looked him in the eye. “And I’m going to keep telling you that until you believe me.”

Behind them, a beam cracked and fell. Caleb looked around and seemed to realize where they were. “We need to get out of here,” he mumbled, shifting to get to his feet. "Frumpkin, come on."

“Yeah,” Nott said. “Yeah, let’s go.” She kept her hand on his back and he kept a grip on her shoulder as, together, they stumbled to the back of the building, through the door, and outside into the empty streets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week's chapter is the beginning of Spring.
> 
> (Sorry this chapter was late, I had some things to sort out)
> 
> EDIT: I'm actually gonna give it two weeks, and in that interval, I'm going to go back and add Frumpkin to this story because it is seriously missing some Frumpkin. It started out as me just forgetting about him and turned into me not wanting to go back through the whole thing but dammit I want to write Frumpkin.


	24. Spring, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, Frumpkin’s in this one. I’ve gone back through and added him in the entire story, because I regretted not adding him in the first place. Feel free to read back through if you’d like, but it’s not necessary if you’re okay with Suddenly Frumpkin.
> 
> Anyway, here we go. Home stretch.

“Come on, it’s all right. There’s nothing out here.” Caleb was on his hands and knees with his face close to the ground, trying to coax Frumpkin out from under one of the broken-down cars along the highway. Nott stood lookout nearby, though it had been over a week since they’d seen any people _or_ Infected. The highway was nice. High. Easy to spot threats from.

“Yes,” Caleb murmured. “Yes, right here… All right, good. Good boy, Frumpkin.” He finally dragged the cat out from under the chassis with one hand, and lifted him up so he could cradle him in his arms like an infant. “Did you see what made that sound?”

“No,” she said. “But I _think_ it was the hubcap on that car.” She pointed. “It probably rusted and fell off.”

“Okay. So long as it wasn’t anything living.” Caleb put the cat on his shoulder. “Let’s keep moving. I see the exit for the hospital up ahead.”

They’d been on this highway since they left the compound near the University. The closer they got to Salt Lake City, though, the more something tightened in their chests. Neither of them said a word about it to the other, though. They were both so caught up in acting normally that neither of them noticed the other was acting strained.

They found a military barrier further down the road, and as they were climbing over it, they found they could see straight to the big cross on the St. Mary’s Hospital. “Nearly there,” Nott breathed. She offered Caleb what she hoped was a smile. He quickly returned it.

The road ahead was blocked, but they found a way into a nearby subway station. Between the red carpeting and the high ceilings, it reminded Caleb of a Catholic church he’d been in once, before the outbreak. But there was a large tree growing up through part of the floor, and someone had hung a makeshift sign in the form of a piece of fabric bearing the words EVACUATION SAFE ZONE in bright yellow paint.

“Oh, my god,” Nott said, and before Caleb could ask her what, she sprinted off along the second floor.

“Nott, wait!” Caleb ran after her, but she’d already stopped at a window and pressed her face against the glass.

She glanced back when she saw him approaching. “Caleb, come look at this!” she told him, and ran off again. Caleb had no choice but to run after her as best he could. She kept going, barely waiting for him as she made her way around the building until she arrived at a spot where the wall had collapsed, and vines had partially concealed the opening. And there, eating the vines, was a living, breathing giraffe.

Caleb stopped in the doorway, his chest heaving from the run. He’d never seen a giraffe from this close before. He could vaguely remember going to the zoo once, with his school, but he’d been very small and the giraffes had been far away in their enclosure. This one was only about ten feet away from him. He could see the bristles at the top of its horns.

The giraffe flicked its ear, but otherwise, it didn’t seem to care about them. Caleb just stood there, staring, until movement caught his eye and he realized Nott was slowly stepping towards it. “Nott,” he said.

“It’s okay." It wasn’t clear whether she was talking to him, or to the giraffe. “I’m not gonna scare it…” She crept closer, and when she was close enough, she slowly, carefully, stretched out her arm and placed it against the giraffe’s neck. It didn’t seem to care; it was watching her with one eye, but it continued to eat.

Nott glanced back at Caleb. “Come on,” she said. “It’s friendly.”

"I wouldn’t call that friendly,” Caleb muttered, but he moved closer. Frumpkin was silent on his shoulders, the fur on his back prickling. But the giraffe still didn’t move as he approached. When he was close enough, Caleb slowly lifted his hand and ran it along the side of the creature’s jaw. It was weirdly big up close, and he hadn’t expected its fur to be as stiff and flat was it was.

The giraffe seemed to have had enough touching, though. It moved its head, still watching them, and turned to plod away.

“Oh, where are you going?” Nott trotted off into the building to try and keep it in sight. Caleb went after her without a word, but she was already far ahead of him. “Hurry up!” Nott called from inside a stairwell. “Come look at this!"

He followed the sound of her voice and finally emerged onto a rooftop balcony. Nott stood at the railing, watching as the giraffe from earlier joined a small group of others in a flat spot below. It had probably been a parking lot at some point, but nature had taken over. Now the asphalt was barely visible for all the grass and trees. The giraffes looked like they had escaped from the local zoo. Caleb made a note to keep on the lookout for other zoo animals. At this point, they might have learned to hunt humans for easy meat, like the raptors in that old book, Jurassic Park.

But he didn’t see any more animals from here, and as he confirmed that it was just him and Nott and the giraffes, he began to relax. The view from there was beautiful, really. The buildings reflected the blue of the sky, and the mountains towered in the distance beyond them, their peaks obscured by mist. It was all very green, and white, and blue, and a breeze ruffled their hair as they just stood in silence, leaning on the railing and taking it in. They'd gotten a lot of peace lately. A lot of time to process. Nott had told Caleb how she met David, about the Infected, about her escape and how she found him. Caleb hadn't told her much about his side of the story. He told her he'd been captured, he'd escaped, he'd killed David out of necessity, and then she'd found him. That was it.

After a long time, Nott sighed. “We should get going again,” she said, turning to head for the door again. But she paused with her hand on the doorknob, and when she looked back, Caleb was still standing at the railing. “Caleb,” she said. He turned to look at her. “We don’t… really have to do this. You do know that, don’t you?”

He gave a quiet laugh and lifted a hand to Frumpkin. “I don’t know what the other option would be.”

“We could—we could leave.” Nott glanced out over the city again. “We could go back to Beau’s, the two of us. The Fireflies would never know, they’d just figure we died out there, or something.”

She watched him think it over. She could see the gears turning as he weight pros and cons, risks and rewards. But eventually, his shoulders slumped, just slightly, and he sighed. "After everything that’s happened?” he asked. “After all we’ve done?” He shook his head. “It cannot be for nothing. I— _we—_ have to see this through to the end. All right?” He pushed the door open and headed through. As they headed back down the stairs, he added, “Once this is all over, we will go wherever you want to.”

“Well, then let’s get this over with,” Nott told him. “I’m not leaving without you.”

Caleb smiled. “Thank you, Nott.”

          

They made their way back down out of the building and crossed under the highway. Nott spotted a line of huge white tents nearby and recognized them from her dim memories of the outbreak. “Is that a triage tent?” she asked Caleb.

He nodded. “My family and I ended up in one of these,” he murmured. “We were here for a long time. My… my father had taken a bullet the night the outbreak reached us.”

Nott looked up. “What? Who would have _shot_ him?”

“A soldier.” He reached up to pet Frumpkin again. “Following orders.”

Nott’s foot scuffed something on the ground, and she paused and looked down. It was a photograph of two parents and their young son. They were all grinning, and the kid was holding a little foam baseball bat. He couldn’t have been more than five. Nott’s heart ached, but she stepped over it and trotted to catch up with Caleb.

“There were a lot of stories like ours,” Caleb said. He wasn’t looking at her, but she had to wonder if he’d seen the photo. “Not everyone was as lucky as we were at first.”

Nott looked down. “I know.”

Following the road led them to a split. Somebody had painted over the highway signs, and the one on the right said, SALT LAKE CITY MILITARY ZONE AHEAD. The other read, MEDICAL EVALUATION USE TUNNEL. The military zone had a large gate blocking it. The tunnel looked to be the easier path, so they took that one. It was filled with broken-down cars, but negotiating a path was easy enough. Parts of the roof of the tunnel had fallen in and grass had sprung up in the concrete below the sunny spots, and in one spot, a patch of bushy vines trailed down through the opening, covered in white flowers.

The only sound was their footsteps echoing around them.

Then, halfway down the tunnel, they reached a spot where the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler had blocked the tunnel off completely. It took some effort, but they helped each other up. On the other side, the tunnel was partially flooded. “Try to keep to the sides,” Caleb said. “That looks… very deep.”

They slogged through the water until they found a raised walkway into a maintenance tunnel that looked like it led in the direction they wanted to go. There was a fence with a gate that was bolted from the other side, but it wasn’t too high; Caleb put Frumpkin on the ground and boosted Nott over the top.

But as soon as her feet hit the ground on the other side, something shifted in the corner. A runner rose out of the rubble and screeched.

“Nott!” Caleb grabbed for his pistol, but Nott was faster; she whipped her crossbow off her back and shot the runner before it could reach her. It crumpled, and they were both silent for a moment, listening for any others. Finally, when they didn’t hear anything, Nott put her crossbow away and sighed.

“It must have been a straggler.” She turned back to the gate and gave a quick grin. “I can’t wait for these things to be wiped out.”

Caleb managed a smile in return. That had been way too close. “Let’s just keep going,” he said. “The sooner we get to the hospital, the better.”

 

Nott heard it first, but she didn’t say anything. She was hoping her ears were just playing tricks on her. But as they climbed higher towards another tunnel, Caleb noticed it, too. He didn’t say anything, either. In fact, neither of them said anything until they were standing at the edge of the tunnel filled with water that was roaring past them like a river after a hard rainfall. All the cars were completely submerged; all they could see was the tops of a few trailers.

“Well, fuck,” said Nott, looking down at the water, “Do you see a way around?”

“No, said Caleb. “Maybe we can follow it a ways. Some cars are bound to have gotten caught somewhere. We might be able to get across.”

“All right. Just be careful.”

Frumpkin had no problem hopping around on his hey climbed across the trailers carefully, keeping low so they could grab onto something if they slipped. Mist thrown up out of the water had made the metal horribly easy to slip on. There were a few calls; once, Caleb had to grab Nott by her hoodie to keep her from falling in. Then a minute later, Caleb nearly didn't make a jump and Nott grabbed the his jacket and helped him scramble up onto the trailer.

“There’s something up there we can walk on!” Nott told Caleb a long ways down the tunnel. She had to shout to be heard. “I just saw it! Come on!” She led him along the trailers to a decently wide air duct attached to the wall. Nott took a few steps back on the trailer, bounced on her feet, and then took a running leap. She didn’t really need to—it wasn’t all that far—but she wanted to make extra sure she made it this time. If she went into the water here, chances that Caleb would be able to pull her out were very slim.

She landed on her feet with a loud _bang_ and her hands slapped against the wall just in time for her to keep from hitting the concrete with her face. The duct creaked, but it still seemed sturdy enough. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to Caleb. “All right,” she said, holding out her arms. “Your turn.”

He huffed. "You're going to catch me?"

“Sure,” Nott said, still holding out her arms.

There was really no other choice. Caleb took a couple of steps back, set his jaw, and then ran forward and leaped, aiming to the left of Nott. His feet hit the metal and he toppled forward onto his hands and knees. The air duct shook with the impact, but it still held.

“There, see?” Nott said. She had a hand on his shoulder and another on his back. “You didn’t even need my help.”

Caleb managed a smile. "Thank you anyway." The duct creaked threateningly as he got to his feet. “Let’s just get off of this thing.". Behind them, Frumpkin hopped across and then wove between their feet to walk in the front with his tail high. Caleb smiled.

They followed the air duct to where it ended, but but they weren’t stranded yet; a bus was stuck on its side between the wall and a concrete walkway on the other side of the tunnel. Nott climbed down and confirmed that it seemed to be holding, and Caleb gave her a couple of seconds to get out of the way before he dropped down after her.

As soon as his feet hit the bus, though, something creaked and the whole thing shifted. Nott and Caleb stopped and threw their arms out to keep their balance as, with a horrible shriek of metal, the bus jolted and started to slide downriver.

“ _Go!_ ” Caleb shouted, sprinting towards the walkway.

Nott leaped over one of the shattered windows and scrambled up onto solid concrete, but Caleb was just a few feet from the walkway when the bus slammed into something and the front doors snapped open under his feet. He fell but managed to fling out his arms and catch himself on the side, with his legs dangling inside as the bus began to gain speed.

“Caleb!” Nott was trotting along on the walkway in front of him, reaching down for him with both hands. He tried to grab her hand, but the bus hit something else and the jolt knocked him down inside. Water began to pour through the broken windshield, carrying him backward, and he grabbed onto a pole and clung to it with all his strength.

But all his strength wasn’t enough; he lost his grip and the roaring water carried him to the back of the bus and slammed him against the rear window. The noise of the water was nearly deafening. Caleb grabbed a seat with both hands and pulled himself forward, but he knew immediately that he couldn’t get any farther up. If he let go with either hand, he’d be at the back again in seconds.

Just then he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his vision, and he looked up just in time to see Nott land on the second pair of doors above his head. One side of the glass cracked, and the door gave a little under her weight—just a couple of inches—enough for him to reach up and grab it, dragging on it, trying to break it open as Nott pushed and stomped from the other side. “You’re gonna be okay!” she was shouting. “I’ll get you out of there, I promise!”

The door broke open, knocking Caleb under the water. He flailed back to the surface and found Nott sticking her hand through the door. The bus was starting to roll sideways. “Come on!” she told him. “Grab my hand!”

“Nott!” Caleb shouted. “Nott, get back onto the—”

The whole bus lurched again, tilting over, and Nott pulled her hand back to hold on to the top of the door because she was suddenly hanging off of the side of the bus. Her shoes slipped against the glass. The bus was still screeching down the tunnel, moving with the current towards the deeper water.

“Nott!” Caleb shouted again, reaching towards her. “Give me your hand before—”

The bus fell and Caleb’s shoulder banged against a seat and suddenly he was underwater. It was eerily quiet down here, aside from the rumbling surface above him.

He grabbed the doorframe and pulled himself through. Instantly the current flung him sideways through the sunken tunnel, flipping him head over heels and spinning him around and ramming him into walls and wreckage and pieces of debris. It was a few moments before the water slowed and he finally managed to regain his bearings and some semblance of control over where he was going, and as he looked around, he spotted Nott floating nearby in the water.

Caleb swam towards her, trying to ignore the burn in his lungs. He hadn’t gotten a full breath before the bus fell. He reached Nott and hooked an arm around her middle, and then he kept swimming, making his way towards where the water was lighter. Light meant an opening. A few feet farther along, he spotted the surface.

He burst out of the water and gasped, struggling to pull himself forward with his free arm. After a moment he felt concrete under his knee, and he put his hand down on blissfully solid ground and started to crawl up the ramp, towards the huge square of sky where the tunnel opened into the air. He dragged Nott a few more feet out of the water—enough that her head was above the surface, at least—before he collapsed to his elbows, nearly choking on the air as it rushed into his lungs. He turned his head and shouted, "Frumpkin!" over his shoulder, hoping the cat would hear him and get there on his own. He hadn't fallen in the water, had he? It didn't seem like something he would do. 

A couple more seconds passed before he noticed that Nott wasn’t coughing. He looked over at her and realized that she actually wasn’t moving at all. Her eyes were closed and her head lolled to the side, almost as if she was asleep.

Caleb put his ear to her chest, listening for a heartbeat. Or breathing. Or anything. “No,” he said, sitting up. It couldn’t happen this fast. “No, no, no…” He put the heel of his hand on her chest and put the other hand over it and started chest compressions, as best he knew how to do them. Every couple of seconds he glanced fearfully at her face for any signs of life.

Something clicked nearby. He looked up. Two men in combat gear stood above him on the ramp, training their rifles on him and Nott. “Hands in the air,” one of the men ordered.

Caleb looked back down and kept trying. “She’s not breathing—”

“Hands in the _fucking_ air!” the man shouted.

Caleb ignored them, and he ignored the rising panic in the back of his mind that screamed at him to _run, go, leave her, it’s too late._ His lungs burned and his wrists ached, but the adrenaline blocked the pain and exhaustion in his sheer desperation to get Nott to _breathe._ The soldiers were moving down the ramp, one either side of him, still aiming their rifles, and his little friend still wasn’t waking up. She  _wasn't waking up._  

Something dark moved out of the corner of his vision, and the last thing he knew was the pain spiking through his skull.

 

He woke up not on concrete, but on a bed, which was a surprise. The second surprise was the fluorescent lights overhead. Electricity. The air smelled... weirdly clean. Like rubbing alcohol and plastic. His head was aching. He blinked slowly, dazedly trying to remember how he’d gotten here. He didn’t remember. That was strange. He usually remembered everything.

After a moment, he registered that there was a person next to him. He turned his head to find a woman he just barely recognized sitting in a chair beside his bed, one knee up, watching him steadily. She seemed older than she had a few months ago. Her hair showed a few more streaks of gray. She had a new scar on her shoulder. And her eyes were tired, but there was a spark in them that hadn’t been there last time he saw her.

“Welcome to the Fireflies,” said Marlene.


	25. Spring, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update. This is a decently big chapter word-wise and story-wise, and I wanted to get it right. I'm still not completely satisfied with it, but it's good enough.

Marlene sighed, or maybe laughed. It was difficult to tell. “Sorry about the…” She gestured to her temple. “You know. I put out word about you and Nott, but I guess these guys didn’t get the memo. They didn’t realize who you are.”

The guns, Caleb remembered. The bus. The water. “Nott,” he said aloud, starting to sit up. “Is she—?”

“She’s fine,” Marlene interrupted. “We got her here in time. She’s resting now.”

Caleb exhaled and let his head drop back onto the pillow.

For a moment, Marlene studied him without speaking. “How did you do it?” she murmured at last, shaking her head.

He sighed. “It was Nott. She got us here. I’d have died… many times, if it wasn’t for her.”

Marlene got to her feet and started to pace. “I lost most of my crew crossing the country,” she told Caleb. Her tone was unreadable, but her shoulders were tense. “I pretty much lost… everything.” She paused and turned to look at him. “And then you two show up, practically on our doorstep.”

Caleb sighed and pushed himself upright. As he did, he noticed a distinct lack of a certain small animal. He looked around. “Where is my cat?” he asked.

Marlene frowned. “What?”

“My cat. There was a tabby cat with us, all the way from Boston. His name is Frumpkin. Where is he?”

“Oh,” said Marlene. “He might have been trying to get in earlier.”

“I’d like him to stay with me,” Caleb said.

Marlene glanced at one of the soldiers. The man was wearing a mask, but it looked like he rolled his eyes before he stuck his head out the door and said something ot somebody outside. Then he pulled his head back inside. “We’ll see if we can catch him,” the man muttered.

Marlene nodded. “So we’ll get your cat to you, if we can,” she said. “But I’m afraid we can’t waste too much time on him. Someone’ll be in here to talk to you by the end of the day. We want to get started on this as soon as possible.”

“That’s fine.”

“All right.” Marlene crossed her arms. “Hopefully when I see you again, we’ll have some sort of news.”

           

There wasn’t much to do in that room as Caleb waited. It was pretty bare. All the furniture was bolted to the floor, as he discovered when he tried to move the chair so he could stand on it to look out the absurdly high-up windows. It was beginning to occur to him that this didn’t seem like a hospital room for someone who was staying willingly. He pushed the unease away by telling himself it was just because he was unknown to them. If Nott had worked with these people, and she trusted them, then there was no real reason to be suspicious.

He tried the door and found that it was unlocked. When he poked his head out, though, he found the door flanked by two soldiers. One of them looked at him and said, “Please stay in the room,” and Caleb stepped back inside and shut the door without a word.

Soon after that, a soldier arrived carrying Frumpkin. Frumpkin’s ears were flat against his skull, and he seemed none too pleased about his circumstances. But when he spotted Caleb, he yowled and scrambled out of the soldier’s arms. In less than a second he was across the room and leaping up onto Caleb’s lap.

Caleb almost had to laugh. “I’m glad to see you, too,” he said.

The soldier left without saying anything, which was fine. Caleb laid down on his back and put Frumpkin on his stomach. Frumpkin stretched out over Caleb’s chest and purred more than he’d ever purred before.

The rumbling put Caleb a little more at ease. He’d made it. Frumpkin was here. Nott was… somewhere around. They’d made it all the way here. Now he just needed Nott, just needed for the Fireflies to be done with him, and then they could go.

 

Towards the end of the day, as Caleb was sitting on the floor playing with Frumpkin, the door opened again and two men he hadn’t seen before ducked through the doorway. One man drew Caleb’s attention first because his long hair was dyed a shockingly bright shade of pink. He found himself staring as the man offered a handshake and a sort of drowsy smile. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Caleb,” he said. “I’m Caduceus Clay.”

Caleb nodded slowly and accepted the handshake. His hand half disappeared in Mr. Clay’s; the man was absolutely huge. He had to be nearly seven feet tall. “…Hello, Mr. Clay,” he said at last.

The other man didn’t introduce himself. He just nodded curtly in greeting. He was carrying a metal box like a briefcase in one hand.

Mr. Clay sat down in the chair, and Caleb moved to half-lean, half-sit on the hospital bed. “So,” said Mr. Clay. “How do you feel?”

“…All right,” said Caleb.

"Okay.” Mr. Clay nodded. “When were you bitten?”

“Eight months, two weeks, and three days ago,” Caleb replied.

Mr. Clay’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve been keeping count?”

“No, I’m just good at remembering things.”

“Oh. That’s good. Can I see the bite?”

Caleb pushed his sleeve up and held his arm out. Mr. Clay tried to pull the chair forward for a closer look, and seemed surprised when his it didn’t move.

“It’s bolted to the floor,” Caleb explained.

“Huh.” Mr. Clay frowned. “Strange.” He got to his feet and leaned over to get a closer look. Caleb tried not to feel nervous, though he’d never really liked people looming over him like this.

“We need to take some blood samples,” Mr. Clay said after he’d inspected the bite. “That way we can get some idea of how it spread, if it did. Or we can just figure out why it’s not affecting you. There are a lot of different ways this could have happened.” He was smiling. “All we have to do is figure out a way to make it happen again.”

The unknown man pulled a small box out of his bag and set it on the bed next to Caleb. When he opened it, Caleb saw that it was full of needles and empty vials, and he quickly looked away.

Mr. Clay noticed. “Oh. I’m sorry, we should have warned you. Not a fan of needles?”

“I’m not a fan of most things that go in my skin,” Caleb said, still looking away. With one hand he found Frumpkin and tried to just think about that.

"Well, we’ll make this as quick as possible.” Mr. Clay nodded to the other man, who took out a piece of rubber and tied it around Caleb’s thin bicep.

“All right” Caleb said tightly, reminding himself that the sooner this was over, the sooner he could see Nott, and the sooner they could leave. “Whatever you need to do. Just do it quickly, please.”

“All right,” said Mr. Clay.

The other man muttered, “Try not to move.”

Mr. Clay was silent for a moment, watching. Caleb tried not to pay attention to the pinching pressure on his inner elbow. He ran his hand over Frumpkin’s back, over and over again, focusing on that.

Abruptly Mr. Clay said, “Have I mentioned that my family used to garden a lot?”

“No,” said Caleb. “I don’t believe so.”

“Well, before the outbreak, we used to garden as a family. Mostly flowers, and things we could make into tea. It was really very good tea. I’ll have to see if I can bring you some.”

“I’d like that,” Caleb said. The talking was helping, too. Anything. Anything else to focus on. Between that and Frumpkin, the process wasn’t too bad. Mr. Clay kept talking steadily the whole time, about flowers, about local animals, about the bees in his family’s garden, occasionally waiting for input from Caleb to make sure he was still listening. And Frumpkin was a calming presence.

Then, with no warning, Mr. Clay said, “All right! I think we’re done.”

A piece of gauze pressed against the inside of Caleb’s elbow. The man muttered, “Hold that there.”

As Caleb obliged, he made the mistake of looking down. He saw what seemed like an awful lot of vials full of blood in the case. He looked away again.

“It looks like more than it is, I promise,” Mr. Clay said. Beside Caleb, the other man shut the case. “But still, don’t stand up for a while. I think that’s what you’re supposed to do after you get blood taken. Right?” he looked at the other man. But the man just shrugged and headed for the door.

Caleb eyed the man and waited until he’d left before he asked Mr. Clay, “Have you not done this before?”

Mr. Clay laughed. “No, I haven’t.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Mr. Clay shifted and glanced at the door as if trying to think of a less awkward way to leave than just walking out without a word.

 Caleb broke the silence. “How is Nott?”

Mr. Clay’s smile faded. He glanced at the door again, sighed, and then stepped over to the chair and sat down. “She’s… recovering. She took a lot of water, and she was out for a long time.”

This information was met with silence. After a second, Mr. Clay smiled again. “She’ll be all right, though,” he assured Caleb. “She just needs to get her strength back up. She ought to be good to go in a day or two, and by that time, we’ll hopefully have some idea of how we’re going to go about this.”

“This?” Caleb repeated.

“Well… you. Your situation. Figuring out why you’re immune, and doing something with the information. Fungus happens to be my specialty, and I’m afraid I’m the best bedside manner here. Marlene wanted someone who wasn’t going to scare you off too quickly.”

Caleb studied Mr. Clay. For all he was weirdly tall and a little gaunt, there was a softness to his expression that _was_ sort of comforting. And the burr in his voice and his easygoing demeanor made Caleb want to relax.

So, slowly, Caleb did. “All right,” he said. “If you need more blood, I can do that.”

“Are you sure? That seemed to upset you.”

“It did.” Caleb scratched Frumpkin under his chin. Frumpkin tilted his head up to make it easier. “But… anything you do can’t hurt much more than getting a piece of rebar through my gut.”

"You got a piece of rebar through your gut?” Mr. Clay repeated in mild surprise. “I’m impressed you survived.”

Caleb gave a huff of laughter. “If you’re going to be impressed with anyone, it should be Nott. She’s the one who stitched me up and kept me alive. I didn’t do anything except stumble around and pull my stitches. I have the scar right here.” He put a hand to his stomach.

“Ouch,” said Mr. Clay. “Which reminds me. I’ve been wondering—are you two related? Friends? How did you meet?”

“Well, that’s a very long story,” Caleb said. “To shorten it, we met… by luck, I suppose. We helped each other get away from some soldiers, she found out I was infected, and Marlene sort of… hired her to get me to the Fireflies. Then she just stuck with me.”

“I see.”

"What about you?” Caleb inquired. “Have you been with the Fireflies long?”

Mr. Clay chuckled. “No,” he said, “not long at all. I used to live… uh, in a compound near here. My whole family did. But, we weren’t doing so well lately.” His voice grew quieter. “People kept leaving to look for supplies, or help, and they kept not coming back. Soon enough, it was just down to me.”

“Oh,” Caleb murmured. “I’m… sorry to hear that.”

Mr. Clay nodded. “Then the Fireflies found me, and took me in. My family had been studying the fungus even before that, so I guess they thought I could be useful. And now, here I am.”

Caleb nodded. For a moment they just sat there, looking at each other, until Mr. Clay seemed to decide the silence had gone on long enough. “Well,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’m going to go get started on this. When Nott wakes up, someone will come get you.” He smiled. “And if nobody else does, I’ll do it myself, okay?”

“Okay,” Caleb said quietly.

“All right. I’ll see you later, Mr. Caleb.” Mr. Clay opened the door and waved cheerfully, and he nearly whacked his head on the doorframe before he thought to duck. Caleb could hear him telling one of the soldiers, “The doors here are so small!” as the door shut, and then Caleb was alone again, except for his cat.

He took the gauze off his arm and found that he’d stopped bleeding, at least. At least there was that. He sighed. And then, with nothing else to do, he pulled his feet back up onto the bed and laid down to go back to sleep. Frumpkin curled up against his stomach and started to purr.

           

Another day passed. Mr. Clay came by to tell Caleb they were very close to figuring out their next step. He even stayed to play with Frumpkin for a few minutes, which solidified Caleb’s positive opinion of him. Caleb asked about Nott again. Mr. Clay said she’d woken up long enough to eat something, but she’d fallen asleep again too quickly for anyone to come get him.

 

At the end of that same day, the door opened again. Caleb straightened, expecting to see Mr. Clay coming back to tell him Nott was awake. But Marlene stepped into the room instead, flanked by two guards. Caleb tried not to feel disappointed. If Marlene was here, then something big must have happened, right? Maybe this was it. Maybe they were done. And Nott would probably be willing to take the time to let him find Mr. Clay and thank him before they left. They could ask around and find him.

As all this ran through Caleb’s mind, one of the soldiers shut the door, and instantly something, some old instinct, clicked to life. Caleb was immediately nervous. Marlene’s expression was difficult to read, but she didn’t move very far into the room, which immediately made him even more uneasy. The worst scenarios ran through his head. They couldn’t find a cure. Or maybe they just needed more blood. That wouldn’t be so bad. But what if something was wrong with Nott. Was something wrong with Nott?

“Hello,” said Caleb. He hoped nothing he was thinking showed on his face.

“Hi, Caleb.” Marlene offered a smile that she didn’t seem to mean. “Don’t worry, it’s good news.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’m glad.”

She nodded. “We were able to determine that the cordyceps in you has mutated,” she explained. “That’s why you’re immune. With it, we should be able to reverse-engineer a vaccine.” Now she smiled, something like wonder and relief in her eyes. “A _vaccine,_ ” she repeated.

Caleb crossed his arms and tried not to look like he was hugging himself. He didn’t like the way she was looking at him. Not like a hero, though that would have been bad, too. She was looking at him like he was the miracle cure. Like she was seeing him as all the vaccines, all the people she was going to save using what they’d get from him. It was… disconcerting. “All right,” he said. “How long do you need me for?”

 Marlene’s smile dimmed a bit. “Not long,” she said. “We just…” She paused, and then she sighed. “Well, we just have to remove it so we can get started.”

“But it grows all over the brain.”

Marlene nodded, and her eyes flicked briefly downward before returning to his. “It does,” she said softly. She looked almost apologetic.

Slowly it sank in what exactly she meant, and then Caleb shook his head and rose to his feet. “No,” he said, but his voice was barely a creak. He cleared his throat and repeated, “No. I’m not—I’m very sorry, but you’re going to have to find someone else.”

And he gathered up Frumpkin and turned to leave the room, but a soldier stepped in front of the exit. Caleb stopped short.

“There _is_ no one else,” Marlene told him.


	26. Spring, Part 3

Nott woke to fluorescent lights overhead. Immediately everything came rushing back to her; she remembered water filling her chest, and she remembered an arm around her middle, and then she remembered a horrible pain…

Her ribs throbbed with the memory, and she grunted and lifted a hand to them. When she moved, someone beside her said, “You awake?”

She pried her eyes open and turned her head. A man was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. She only stared at him, trying to figure out how to breathe without triggering the pain again, but he seemed to take this as the answer he was looking for. He went to the door and stuck his head out, and she heard him tell somebody outside, “Hey. Someone go get Marlene. She’s awake.”

“Marlene?” Nott repeated, sitting up. She winced and hunched over as her ribs throbbed again, but she quickly realized that hunching over made it worse. After a minute or two, she managed to position herself so that it didn’t hurt too much just to sit there. The soldier stood by the door and watched in silence.

A few minutes later, the door opened and Marlene entered the room. “You’re really a sight for sore eyes,” she said, weary but smiling.

“You too,” Nott told her, managing to return the smile. “How’s Caleb? If I’m here, that means he is too, isn’t he?”

Marlene nodded. “He’s here.”

“Can I see him?”

“He’s perfectly fine. You should just focus on resting and recovering. You’ve had quite the journey.”

“Yeah. Where’s Caleb?”

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

" know,” Nott said, rubbing her face. Her eyes hurt. “But I do worry. I just want to see he’s all right.”

“You can’t.” Marlene sighed. “He’s being prepped for surgery.”

Nott frowned. “Surgery?”

There was a long pause. Nott looked around. There were three soldiers in the room now; she hadn’t noticed the ones who entered with Marlene. None of them were looking at her directly.

Nott slid off the bed and straightened up as best she could. “What surgery?” she demanded. “What’s going on? Where’s Caleb?”

“Caleb’s…” Marlene hesitated. “He’s immune, all right. Studying the fungus he’s infected with is going to give us a lot to work with towards finding a cure. But we have to surgically remove it first.” She crossed her arms. “And, well, there’s no pretty way to word this, so I figured I should be the one to tell you.” Then she paused, as if still trying to figure out a nicer way to put it.

But she didn’t need to; Nott caught on immediately. “And he _agreed_ to this?” She slid off the bed so she could stand up. “That doesn’t sound right. He—he must have hit his head, or something. Let me talk to him.”

But nobody responded, and nobody moved. As the silence stretched thinner, panic built in Nott’s chest. Marlene’s expression was terrifyingly devoid of emotion. “Marlene, _please._ Please don’t do this to him.”

Marlene shut her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I can tell you’ve gotten close, Nott. He asked about you, too, first thing when he woke up. But…” She paused. “I know it’s difficult, and it… it sucks. It really does.” She took a deep breath. “But this is bigger than him. This is going to save everyone.”

“You can’t just—” Nott stepped forward, but a soldier grabbed her shoulder and kicked her in the back of the knees. Nott choked down a cry of pain and crumpled to all fours.

“Stop,” Marlene ordered. But she didn’t move from where she was standing, and her expression stayed the same.

Nott struggled to her feet again and clenched her fists, her eyes burning. “I won’t let you go through with this.”

Marlene studied her for a second, and turned to the nearest soldier. “March her out of here,” she told him quietly. “If she tries anything…” She glanced at Nott, and her expression tightened. She turned her back to the room and finished her thought. “If she tries anything, shoot her.”

“Marlene!” Nott leaped to her feet, but the soldier moved between them and then the door closed and Marlene was gone.

For a moment Nott only stood there, trembling, her chest tight with grief. Marlene was going to let Caleb die. No, she wasn’t just going to let him die; Marlene was giving the orders to kill him.

“Come on,” the soldier ordered, opening the door. When she didn’t move, a second soldier grabbed her arm and slung her away from the bookshelf. She stumbled through the door. The soldier followed her out and shoved her in the back with his rifle. “Keep moving.”

Nott headed down the hall, her mind working. Only one soldier came with her—the others headed off in the opposite direction. Good. But there was no way this guy would miss if he decided to fire. She had to figure out a way to get that gun from him without getting killed first.

“Excuse me,” said an unfamiliar voice down the hall. Nott and the soldier halted. There was a very tall, rather thin man striding down a side hall in their direction. Nott blinked, wondering how he’d managed to keep his hair dyed pink in all this apocalypse.

“Clay,” said the soldier, and he seemed to relax a little in the man’s presence. “Can it wait? I’m sort of busy.” He poked Nott with his rifle. She scowled.

The pink-haired man called Clay didn’t even glance at Nott. Instead, he frowned and stepped closer to the guard. “What’s wrong with your wrist?”

The guard glanced down. “My wrist? Nothing’s—”

“No, no, you’re holding your hand weird, I can tell. What happened?” He stepped around Nott, taking one of the man’s hands off his gun and turning it over to look at his palm. Nott realized what he was doing, and so she remained silent and very, very still.

“Try curling your fingers,” Clay said.

The man glanced at Nott. “Clay, I _really_ can’t—”

“It’ll just take a second,” Clay insisted, smiling amiably. “Okay, good, does it hurt when I press your wrist here?”

“A little,” the man admitted.

“All right, what about this?”

“Ow! Yeah.”

“Yeah, it looks like you need to stretch your hands more. And look here…” Clay was gently pulling the soldier’s arm as he spoke, turning his back to Nott a little bit more every time he moved. He still hadn’t even glanced at her. Nott watched and waited.

Then she saw the soldier’s finger slip off the trigger of his rifle. In that instant, she leaped forward. The soldier yelped, but he was a split second too late—Nott had ripped the gun out of the hands, and she flipped it around and shot him point-blank. He lurched backwards and slid down the wall, leaving a streak of red across the wallpaper.

Nott looked up at Clay. His expression was tight and he was holding his hands against his stomach, but he didn’t move to apprehend her. Nott waited for him to say something, or do something, but Clay just took a deep breath and rubbed his face with one hand, looking down at the dead man.

“Who are you?” Nott asked once she was sure he wasn’t going to attack her.

He shook his head. “There’s no time. You’re trying to get to Mr. Caleb, right?”

“Right,” Nott said, suspicious.

“He’s on the fifth floor,” Clay told her, pointing down the hall. “You can take those stairs, right there. Operating room 12. Now, there aren’t any guards, but the surgeons aren’t going to let you take him, so you—you might have to—” He glanced down at the dead man again and gave a nervous sort of grimace. “After that—”

“Hey!” Someone shouted down the hall. There was a Firefly with a rifle standing in a doorway. “Clay! What the fuck are you doing?”

Nott raised her rifle and shot at the Firefly, but he ran back around a corner before she could manage to hit him. “Come on!” she told Clay, tugging him in the opposite direction. “We have to get out of here!”

Clay followed her, apparently too shocked to do anything else. She led him down the hall and around the corner, where she spotted a little area sectioned off by counters. It might have been a café or some sort of dining area at some point. She pulled Clay over to it and dragged him down behind a counter. And then she paused, listening. She didn’t hear anybody yet. They had a little time.

Abruptly she realized that Clay was shaking beside her. She looked over to find him sitting with his head in his hands, breathing unevenly. She recognized the beginnings of a panic attack, but she didn't know how to help him at this point. So, she grabbed his arm. “You need to get out of this place,” she told him. “Before that guy spreads the word.”

He lifted his head. “But—I can’t just leave you, and Mr. Caleb—”

“We got this far,” Nott told him. “Get out while you can. Do you have anywhere else to go?”

“No?” Clay said. His expression betrayed naked fear.

“All right. Don’t wait for us. Head for the big hydraulic dam in Jackson county, Wyoming. Our friend Beau is there. We’re heading there, too.”

He slowly nodded. “All right,” he said, and he managed a thin smile. “I’ll do that.”

“Okay. One last question—where’s my bag?”

He thought for a second, frowning. “It should have been in the room where you woke up. It might have been in a corner, so you might not have seen it.”

“All right.” Nott got to her feet, and Clay followed. “Thank you,” she told him. “And good luck.”

He nodded somberly. “Good luck to you, too.” He gave one last, weary smile, and then they ducked out from behind the counters and headed off in opposite directions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week is the final chapter of Spring.
> 
> (Just so y’all know, I’m super busy so the chapters gonna be late by a few days at least)


	27. Spring, Part 4

It wasn’t pretty.

By the time Nott retrieved her bag from the room they’d been keeping her in, there were already shouts filtering through the walls. She hoped Mr. Clay had gotten out all right.

As soon as she stepped out of the room, she spotted flashlights lancing around a corner. She ducked behind a dilapidated vending machine and did a quick inventory. Gun, crossbow,  knife, her flask… not a lot to work with. Damn it. She took out her flask and unscrewed the top… and paused. She was going to need to focus if she was going to get out of here alive with Caleb.

She put the flask away, shouldered her pack, and checked how many bolts she had. Not enough. Whatever. She’d deal with it. She’d use the gun. God, she hated guns. She kept forgetting how loud they were.

Nott climbed through a window and headed towards some lights. The Fireflies had set up temporary canvas walls and ceilings through a hallway ahead. That looked promising. She hid behind a stack of crates—these guys really needed to clean up in here—and spent a couple of minutes shooting anyone who came into view. But she was keenly aware that every minute she wasted was the one that might kill Caleb. Eventually, she pushed forward.

Immediately, she rounded a corner and found a Firefly waiting for her. He snarled and leaped at her with a crowbar, but she ducked under it and tackled him at the waist. She landed on top of him, her knife already in her hand, and killed him. The blood spray got in her mouth. She scrambled to her feet, spitting in disgust. Behind her, someone shouted, “I see her!”  
She turned and fired without even taking the time to really aim. A moment later, she heard the man crumple.

Most of the halls were dark; the Fireflies were probably focusing all their electricity to the most important places. Like the surgery room.

She made it to the stairwell and looked around for something to wedge into the doors, something to keep the Fireflies from getting them open. There was a chair nearby. She grabbed it, flipped it upside-down, and stuck the legs through the bars. That wouldn’t slow them down much, but hopefully it would do something.

There were windows in the stairwell. It might have been nighttime, or maybe early morning. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep. How long had she left Caleb alone with these people?

She burst through the doors at the top and ran to the huge windows in the opposite wall. She could see clear across a courtyard, to the other side of the building. There was only one window lit over there, and it was bright as noon.

“I’m coming, Caleb,” she said.

There was only one more hallway and it passed in a blur of bullets and choked screams and warmth against her face and hands. Her stomach roiled but she couldn’t stop long enough to vomit.

There was a door at the end of a hallway with a sign on it. _Authorized Personnel Only._ She opened the door. It led to a sort of theater, with windows for watching a surgery. Shadows of people in scrubs moved across the glass.

Nott went to the next door and opened it, and immediately cold air blasted over her. The room was freezing. There were three people in disposable face masks standing in the room, and all of them turned to face her. She couldn’t see the table with Caleb very well through all of the medical equipment in the room, but there was a steady beeping sound coming from one of the machines. He was still alive.

“Doctor?” asked one of the people, a woman.

One of the men darted around the table. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

Nott began to move forward. Immediately the man grabbed a scalpel off a tray and brandished it like a knife. “Stay back!”

She took out her crossbow and aimed it at him. “Move out of the way.”

“I won’t let you take him,” the man said. His voice was shaking. “This is our future. Think of all the lives we’ll save!” He gestured to Caleb’s motionless form. “I won’t let you take it away!”

“ _Move,_ ” Nott repeated, stepping towards him.

“Don’t come any closer,” the man said. She could see his eyes and she knew he was afraid. “I mean it.”

Nott fired. One of the other surgeons gave a horrified cry—both of them were cowering against the walls. Nott ran to the table.

 Caleb was laid out on his back under the lights, still wearing his pants and t-shirt, though his jacket was missing. There was a tube connected to a mask covering his mouth and nose, and sensors hooked to his chest. His eyes were closed. The only sign he was still alive was the heart monitor next to the table.

Nott pulled the sensors and mask off of him, ignoring the drone that filled the room as the monitor flatlined. Shouts sounded in the hallway and flashlight beams shone through the door.

Caleb was much too heavy for her to carry, but she’d be damned if she didn’t try. She wrapped her arms around his torso and dragged him off the table. He seemed lighter than he should have been. Maybe it was just the adrenaline. But she managed to get down the hall, avoiding the rooms where she heard shouting.

“Get back!”

“God fucking damn it!”

“Where did she go?”

“She’s taking him towards pediatrics!” Someone called ahead of her. She stumbled backwards and turned to get away from the voice. All the lights were red. Why were the lights red? It was so dim she could barely see and the shadows looked to be full of blood.

“Don’t let her get to the elevator!” That one was coming from the next room. They nearly had her surrounded.

“Come on, don’t make this harder than it has to be!” Flashlight beams lanced across the halls out of the corner of her eye.

Nott’s breath came in wheezes, almost whimpers. Her ribs were aching and her lungs burned. “We’re going to be okay,” she whispered, heaving Caleb up higher and adjusting her grip. He kept slipping down. Her eyes prickled with tears and her throat was so tight it ached. “We’re okay… we’re okay…”

There. The elevator.

“I see her!” someone shouted.

Nott picked up her pace and hauled Caleb through the door, slapping her hand against the “Close Doors” button. She could see Fireflies rounding the corner in the hallway, sprinting towards her, but the doors were sliding shut… and the elevator started to move downward. Nott collapsed against the back wall and swallowed back her tears.  _Not yet,_ she thought. She still had to get them out of here. Then, when Caleb wasn't watching, she could cry all she needed.

 

By the time the elevator reached the bottom, Nott had managed to scrub her eyes completely dry. The doors opened; Nott shifted Caleb’s weight to one arm for long enough to hit the emergency stop button. But as she dragged him out of the elevator, she heard a gun cock, and Marlene’s voice: “You can’t save him.”

Nott looked up. The Firefly leader stood a few feet away, training a handgun on Nott. Her expression was grim. “Even if you get him out of here, then what?” She was moving closer. “Where will you go? You’ll both die out there eventually.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Nott told her, clutching Caleb tighter.

Marlene sighed. “Look.” She took one hand off the gun and slowly moved her hands out to either side in a gesture of appeasement, almost surrender. “You already brought him all the way here, Nott. I get that he’s important to you, but _—_ ”

“He didn’t agree to it, did he?” Nott demanded. Marlene only looked at her, and she went on, “He didn’t agree to die. Caleb would never agree to that.”

Pain was evident in Marlene’s eyes, but she didn’t deny it. “Nott,” she murmured. “Please. You can still do the right thing here.” She paused, and her voice softened further. “He won’t feel anything.”

Nott looked down at Caleb and bit her lip.

 

The signs above the highway were so corroded they were hardly legible. But Nott kept a straight course, driving away from the hospital and the Fireflies and the operating room. She was just barely tall enough to see over the dashboard, and with the seat pulled all the way forward, she could press on the gas and brakes. It wasn’t comfortable, but she’d driven all the way out of town like this already.

She exhaled and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. It wasn’t as if Caleb would have been talking if he’d been in the seat next to her, but the car still felt too quiet. The only sound was the faint rush of the tires on the concrete and the rumble of the engine. It wasn’t a good car. But it was a functional one. It could get her back to Wyoming. She’d get there eventually. Without Caleb navigating for her, her only option was to drive east and north and hope for the best.

The car hit a bump, and there was a grunt from the backseat. Frumpkin gave a small trill of surprise, and Nott glanced over her shoulder.

Caleb lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight streaming through the window above his head. He didn’t quite fit horizontally across the seats; one knee was up, resting against the back of the seat, and the other foot was on the floor. Frumpkin was sitting on his chest, and he lifted one hand to pet his cat. A tired smile stole across his face. “Hello,” he murmured. “It is good to see you.” For a moment he was quiet, and then he seemed to register where he was. He rubbed his eyes. “…Nott?” he mumbled, turning his head a little.

“Try to take it easy,” she told him. “The drugs are still wearing off.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. “What happened?”

The sound of that gunshot rang through Nott’s head again, and she couldn’t blink away the memory of watching Marlene crumple to the concrete floor of the parking lot.

The shot had surprised Nott almost as much as it surprised Marlene. But it was done, and Nott had gritted her teeth and stuffed Caleb’s pistol back into her hoodie pocket. There had been a car nearby that looked like it had been kept in driving shape for the Fireflies; she’d gotten Caleb into the backseat, and Frumpkin had come running out of nowhere to hop up into the car. Nott had had no doubt he'd been keeping an eye on them this entire time, and she was glad not to have to leave him behind.

But nearby, Marlene had left red drag marks on the concrete as she tried to crawl away. Her shirt had been turning crimson. Nott had walked over and stopped just out of reach.

 “Wait,” Marlene had wheezed, lifting one hand in protest. “Let me go—please—"

“You’d just come after him,” Nott had said quietly, and then she’d shot her.

 

But here, now, in the truck, she told Caleb, “They let us leave.”

“…No, they didn’t.”

Of course. He would have fought them when they tried to put him under. He would not have gone quietly. “I convinced them to let you go,” she amended. “It, uh… it turns you there are a lot of people like you, people who are immune. And I talked to Marlene, a lot, while you were out. I got her to agree that… they didn’t really need you. And she said we could leave.”

The lie left a sour taste in her mouth. But she couldn’t tell him about what had really happened. If he could think for a just a little while that they were safe, that nobody was going to come after them again…

The car was silent for another moment. “I see,” Caleb said at last. His voice was soft. “Thank you.”

“Just get some sleep,” she told him, taking her foot off the gas for a second so she could stretch her ankle. The car slowed, but not very much. She shifted forward in the seat to press her foot to the pedal again.

“…That does not look comfortable,” Caleb noted.

“Get some _sleep,_ ” she repeated.

He gave a tired huff of laughter. Then he sighed, and then he went quiet. When Nott glanced back at him he seemed to have drifted off again, his arm covering his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be the epilogue, and the last chapter of this fic. It WILL go up on Saturday because I wrote it weeks ago.


	28. Epilogue

The truck was definitely done for. There was still plenty of gas in the tank, but the engine simply refused turn over.

“Well,” said Caleb, sitting back in his seat after his sixth time trying to restart the car, “I think we are going to have to walk from here.” He pulled the keys out of the ignition and put them in his pocket, where the rattling metal was muffled.

Nott opened the passengers’ side door and started to climb out. “Are we taking the keys?”

“Yes,” Caleb said. “One of Beau’s people may be able to fix this thing up and use it.”

“All right.” Nott shut her car door. “How far is it?”

“Not too far. Just through the woods here.”

Leaving the truck behind on the shoulder, Caleb led Nott off the highway towards a barbed wire fence blocking off a wooded area. He held the wire apart for Nott to climb through first, and then she held it apart so he could join her.

Spring was moving on towards summer, and the grass had sprouted again a while ago. It had been a long drive from Salt Lake City to Jackson County. Nott and Caleb had been entertaining themselves on the road the past few days by watching for animals. Nott had spotted a couple of deer right before they tried to bound across the road in front of the car. Caleb had hit the brakes so suddenly Nott nearly banged her head on the dashboard because the stupid car’s stupid seatbelts had been removed, for some stupid reason. Other than that, it had been uneventful.

“Did you ever go hiking?” Nott asked Caleb. “With your parents? You know, before?”

Caleb climbed over a log and turned to help Nott. “No,” he said. “My father was deployed most of the time, and my mother was more of an indoor person. We spent a lot of family time watching television.”

“What did you watch?”

“My mother really liked detective shows,” he said. Then he gave a huff of laughter. “Thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure she had crushes on some of the actors.”

Nott laughed. “Did _you_ get crushes on anyone on TV?”

“No, they were all a little too old for me. And I didn’t watch many children’s shows. I liked books better.”

They waded across a shallow creek and paused at the base of a small bluff to shake water out of their shoes. A huge tree, nearly twice as wide as Caleb, had fallen and made a sort of ramp. Nott clambered up as easy as anything, and then reached down to help Caleb. It was overcast that day, in a bright sort of way that left her silhouetted against the sky. Caleb was squinting hard as he took her hand and used the tree as a foothold so he could climb up.

From there, they could see down into the river valley, and the electrical dam was just below them—a twenty-minute walk, at most. “All right,” Caleb said. “Almost there.” He set out again down the hill, but after a couple of steps, Nott slowed to a stop.

“Caleb?” she said.

He halted and looked back at her. “Yes?”

She took a deep breath. “Have you ever been in love?”

There was a long pause. Caleb didn’t take his eyes off her, but she could see him thinking hard. At last he said, “I believe so. Why do you ask?”

Nott clenched her fists and stuck them in her hoodie pocket, looking down at the ground. “There’s… someone I need to find,” she muttered. “Not… right now, but just…” She hesitated. “Sometime soon. I… it’s a long way, and you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but I’d feel better if you came with me and—”

“Nott,” Caleb interrupted quietly. “I’ll go wherever you go. I’ll help you find them. Don’t worry.”

Nott finally met his eyes. He was just  watching her, his gaze as steady and serious as ever, and as honest as a child’s.

She gave a thin smile. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy SHIT this took a while! I finally got this epilogue up! Thanks to all of you for reading, I had such a good time writing this and reading the comments!


End file.
